Earlier this week my son Nathan saw a contest listed in a magazine, challenging kids to create an underwater ship out of Legos and write an essay about it. After thinking up a plan for a cool ship, spending an hour building it, and having his big brother take a picture, Nathan discovered that he did not meet all the criteria for entering the contest. Obviously he was disappointed.
After pointing out one blessing in the situation (at least he hadn’t written the essay yet!) we helped him make the best of it. I posted a picture of his ship on my Facebook page and bragged about his hard work. The next day we carefully packed his ship in a shoebox so he could show it off to his class at school. Before we knew it the disappointment had worn off. He still had a great ship to be proud of. Someday when he did meet the criteria for entering he would have some practice building great Lego ships. And yes, he also learned to read all information carefully before getting excited about participating in something, especially if it involves work.
So this week we had a lesson in both handling disappointment and making the best of it. How do you handle disappointment? How have you made the best of a disappointing situation recently? Thank God today that He has the power to bring good out of anything!
Oh, here is a picture of Nathan’s water plane, which flies under water. Not bad for a seven-year-old, huh?
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