Dr. Stan J. Tharp, MBA

 This August I relocated my office to our home. As you can imagine, after working for 41 years at the same place, and in the same office for the last 34 years as head of the organization…I had a LOT to give away, get rid of, and bring home. This included hundreds of books, files and lots of memorabilia. I even regifted an autographed OSU football to a big-fan friend.

I relocated many souvenirs from family vacations and missions trips to my home office; as well as gifted memorabilia from missionaries and Dayton leaders…you get the idea. Two shelves inside the closet of my home study are full of these memory catalysts.

One souvenir I acquired is a polished piece of semiprecious stone shaped like an apple (see pic). It is from a Middle Eastern country, as a reminder of the partnership we had entered, to do relief work with refugees.

I bought it on my first of two trips with this new partnership that seemed “made in Heaven” literally. I believed God had prayerfully and clearly directed us to this missionary who aligned with our compassionate calling to this Mediterranean country.

We had extensive strategic meetings in person, and online. We raised a few hundred thousand dollars to launch our plans to reach this mostly Muslim nation and the refugees fleeing through it. We recruited a leadership team, took a launch trip (ate some great food), and we were immersed in a very different foreign culture from our own, reaching ‘the least of these,’ and God blessed our work.

In the first year we sent several non-traditional short term missions teams, as well as people who stayed for several months at a time for extensive work. I bought the polished apple to remind me of how God had directed our paths together (not enough room in this article to explain it all), and to remind me to pray for the fruitfulness of our growing partnership full of dreams and opportunity.

That was until…until the second trip I took to this country on the other side of the world, about 16 months after my first trip there. All our plans seemed to be working well, interest was growing  back home, and we had already sent several teams to help in the work.  I was with about 12 excited people from our church who were already dreaming of more possibilities for the partnership in the coming years.

Then…then, near the end of our trip together our partner informed me he was taking his family back to the U.S. and pulling the plug (so-to-speak) on the work we had done. Again, I’ll not go into all the details, but suffice it to say, I was caught by surprise, disappointed and confused. I had to respect his decision, but it I didn’t see it coming, and it didn’t make sense.

I was sure God had brought us together. Already we had seen fruitful work being done and growing excitement of others who wanted to take a missions trip and help in this refugee outreach. We  had also raised significant funding to get it all started. This was going GREAT…or not.

Obviously, this is NOT what I had expected, and after all the prayerful planning, fundraising, and hard work (not to mention initial good results) this turn of events didn’t make sense.

When events in life don’t make sense, disappointment can have all kinds of negative impact on us. Disappointment, asking ‘What was that about?’ can put us into a dysfunctional tailspin. Every time I look at this apple from now on I could beat myself up or hold a grudge of confusion.Perhaps worst of all, I could back away from future opportunities and not risk failure (if that is what it was) in the future. I guess I could also throw the apple away! I decided to keep it, as a helpful reminder…sometimes, perhaps many times, things in life don’t make sense. This includes things that seemed so right, so promising. I keep the apple as a reminder that I will never figure out every disappointment.

This polished apple reminds me that the next time I ask “What was THAT about?” I’ll give myself permission to shrug my shoulders, maybe take a deep breath, and answer…”beats me!” I don’t begrudge our partner, he is a good guy with genuine reasons for the unexpected change of direction…I also don’t begrudge myself as though I should have been all knowing and avoided any mistakes.

How about you? Life doesn’t always make sense and things happen we can’t figure out.  Whether it is a job or career disappointment, a marriage or relationship fail, your kid’s life seems to go off track, a business dealing gone bad, or a ministry/serving effort that flopped, my advice is: After learning as much as you can…I find it is best to choose to let some disappointments go. Do the same for yourself. Give yourself permission to NOT BE ABLE to figure it out. Once in a while, a good shoulder shrug, and a softly spoken ‘beats me’ is the best response to unexpected disappointment we can’t figure out. After all, we are told to walk by faith, not by sight. The truth is, you WON’T  ever figure all of life out, and occasionally in the future you will make more mistakes, and even your best mistake free plans will disappoint (sometimes painfully so!)

Look back, learn what you can, be grateful for both good and bad, then shrug your shoulders with a ‘beats me’ and do NOT try to reassure yourself by promising you won’t make a mistake like that again.  That kind of thinking only scares us into not taking risks, and THAT is not what it’s all about!

Theodore Roosevelt is credited with this great encouragement

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

P.S. In case you’re wondering, I’m a stickler for spending funds for the purpose they were raised, so we found a new partner working with Middle Eastern refugees and did some amazing work with them instead