Disappointment / Hallelujah!
She came to her father in tears — her father who was to give her away in her big church wedding, a wedding she had planned since she was five. She had already endured, dry-eyed, the inevitable news that came seriatim like snowballs in a snowball fight — she grimacing with each cold, icy blow — one after another since the COVID-19 news hit the headlines. First, the fun and never-more-to-be all night parties with her friends she grew up with — cancelled. Then the bridal showers — cancelled. Finally, the wedding — cancelled. She even handled that news well, knowing after a small ceremony she and her beloved would get away on the honeymoon they had planned for months and she had dreamed of for years. Then came the call — honeymoon cancelled. It was too much. The flood gates opened. “Why, God!?” she must have said, embracing her dad. She was probably hoping for an answer. Her father is a pastor.
That pastor told that story from a Kentucky pulpit on Palm Sunday. For you reading this it may be close to your story too. Maybe not in circumstance, but in substance — i.e. big disappointment. Five days later Mimi and I phoned Mitzi, our good friend in South Florida. (Mitzi’s fascinating story is in our book.) It was her 100th birthday and 100 had been invited to celebrate it with her. Mitzi was sharp as ever when we called — but all alone. You could say what she looked forward to for almost 100 years didn’t happen.
Tens of thousands of homes are grieving in loss of life due to the Coronavirus. And that casts a shadow of despair across America and our entire planet. But underneath that shadow there are other hurting people whose pain cannot be ignored — in many instances a pain that will forever be remembered. That pain — heartfelt disappointment — has touched young and old, rich and poor, the common and cultivated, and every ethnicity. In the USA every one of us 330 million citizens (the very young excepted) will probably carry at least one big disappointment with us the rest of our lives.
There are two ways out and I use “out” circumspectly. The hint of both is in a story that comes from our 50th Anniversary cruise around the British Isles. We went, looking forward to several excursions — Normandy Beach being at the very top of the list and the big reason we chose that cruise. While on a jam-packed noisy tender boat returning to the ship from visiting Edinburgh — every one of us looking forward to the next day and Normandy beach — the announcement came: Due to a port strike the Normandy Beach excursion has been cancelled. Dead silence in the tender. I’ve not forgotten the disappointment of that moment. Nor will I forget what that moment begot. The story is long but it resulted in the most memorable cruise for us ever five years later on the Seine River. It included the Eiffel tower, Monet gardens, and more. And, yes, the crowning experience — Normandy Beach! Hallelujah! Hope was fulfilled and more — not In Spite Of the disappointment but Because Of.
Something else happened in that dark moment on that crammed tender. Our knees were almost touching the knees of the couple facing us — she in front of me, he in front of Mimi. In that silence I saw big tears swell up in her eyes. I can still see her face — the epitome of disappointment. Her husband looked straight ahead — his face unchanged. I said something to her about our disappointment and “maybe at another time.” She whispered there would be no other time, that her husband — terminally ill — had endured the previous ten days on the ship because of his life’s desire to visit Normandy Beach.
Enter the come-back song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen written over 30 years ago. Cohen’s 80 stanzas never satisfied him. The lyrics, like his life, lean toward the abstract. Many have sought their meaning that leads to the captivating chorus — Hallelujah. Even Cohen himself was not sure what his words meant. Admittedly the song was bigger than himself. This from his own lips: He felt that in spite of life’s darkest there was a hallelujah to be found — “And even though it all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.” I hope Cohen found his In Spite Of Hallelujah. I hope the couple on the tender found their In Spite Of Hallelujah. I hope the newlyweds above will find their Hallelujah — either way — Because Of or In Spite Of. And I pray we each will find ours in our present disappointment(s) and in all our ups and downs of life — a life that hands us all both scenarios. The preparation? Come near to God and he will come near to you (James 4:8). That’s the secret of Hallelujah — Hebrew for Praise the Lord!