“Trusting God Through Our Disappointments”
A Tuesday Morning Update on My Karen March 14th, 2017

According to my online dictionary, the word “Disappoint” is a verb which means 1. To fail to fulfill the expectations or wishes of; 2. To defeat the fulfillment of hopes, plans; thwart; frustrate.

Every person reading this post has experienced or right now today is experiencing disappointment in one form or another. James warned his readers about the very real possibility of their plans not working out the way they anticipated. He said, “Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that: (James 4:13-15) NKJV.

Karen and I have always known that the Lord was taking us on a journey that would include change of plans and even sometimes disappointments. Between my growing disability with the pain in my back, legs, and feet and her cancer situation, we are experiencing an entirely different set of situations than that for which we had hoped. Our dream was to reach retirement age and with our own funding we would make ourselves available to our mission family to come and serve with them in their ministries for a couple of months at a time. Karen would be a great addition in their children’s and ladies ministries and I would gladly help out with some of their counseling as well as teaching an adult class along the way. Well friends, let me tell you, unless the Lord does a significant miracle (which I fully and firmly believe He absolutely can do this!) the Pecks will not be traveling as a team anywhere. Is this a disappointment? Surely it is.

Disappointments abound from the earliest years to the latest years in life. I don’t want to sound gloomy. To be honest, I cannot exactly agree with the online dictionary as it relates to Mike and Karen. We don’t feel like our situations have “failed” to fulfill our wishes. We are not feeling “defeated, thwarted” nor are we “frustrated.”

Our dreams and hopes have changed. But our awesome God has not, nor has His plan and purpose. Honestly friends, it may not be a major change in your plans such as cancer or multiple back surgeries. However, I know that you will likewise experience changes in your plans. The key to it begins with understanding the frailty of human life (James 4:14) and then being committed to the will of God and His purpose (James 4:15). This requires flexibility, commitment to the will of God, and a desire to get to know Him better.

In your disappointments, I can assure you that it will help if you really get the perspective of your life being a “vapor.” Life changes quickly. It also will truly help you to begin to get a sense of how awesome is our great God and how awesome are His plans and purposes. Even when His plans and purposes are not fully clear we still can trust our great God.

Today our disappointment is not major. But it is real to us. We had an appointment with our oncologist Dr. Sidloski today at 3:15. In fact, many of you shared with me that you were already praying about this appointment. Yesterday because of Karen’s weakness and continued illness, the hospital doctor told us that she was not ready to be discharged. This was fully obvious to us and we totally agreed. However, since she is still an inpatient, we obviously cannot see the oncologist today. So is this a disappointment? I guess in the classic definition it is. However we are not feeling failed or thwarted. Just disappointed in the sense of a change of plans. We have many questions we wanted to ask him. We also wanted his assessment of where Karen is in her cancer journey and what treatment options are still open to us.

I will let you know when this appointment is rescheduled. One of the partners in his practice told us that as soon as she is discharged, Dr. Sidloski will see her as soon as possible.

In my next post, I will share some things never, ever to do when a disappointment comes. Until then,
thank you for praying for Karen and me. We are in a very serious and very special time of our lives together. Karen was able to eat a few bites of lunch and supper and they stayed down. She is on two very strong anti-nausea medications. The pain in her abdominal region is growing and she is so weak right now. Thanks for praying that she will be able to get some strength back. Please also pray that we will continue to be a witness of God’s goodness and grace to the great medical team surrounding us.