Comfort Food that’s Better than a Milkshake to Ease the Sting of Disappointment

My granddaughter and I were consoling ourselves at a local burger place. We’d had to postpone a much-anticipated trip, and we were feeling the sting of disappointment. I don’t make a habit of mitigating my emotions with food, but our shared loss required some serious intervention.

Her comfort food of choice is a heaping pile of French fries. Mine is a cookies and cream milkshake. We know that comfort foods don’t change a thing (except maybe our caloric input and blood sugar levels), but misery loves company, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

I know you’ve been there.

You’ve talked about a situation, prayed it through, and accepted the loss, but sometimes simple pleasures help ease the sting.

So there we were

So there we were, her with her pile of fries and I with my milkshake, sitting across the table from each other. She dug into her fries (no ketchup, please), and I popped the lid off my milkshake. I dug my spoon into the creamy goodness and lifted it to my mouth.

That’s when I noticed something dangling from the spoon.

It wasn’t an ice cream drip.

It was a long, dark, milkshake-covered hair.

Those of you who are thinking that I shouldn’t have been drowning my sorrows in a milkshake are nodding your heads right now and saying, “Um hm, I told you so,” but the rest of you are feeling my pain.

A hair in my consolation milkshake? Really? Wasn’t the initial disappointment enough? Must I have sorrow upon sorrow?

I raised the spoon to double check that what I saw was true.

Yep. There it was.

“Well, Lauren,” I said, plopping the spoon back into the shake, “God says ‘In everything give thanks,’ so I’m going to be thankful that I discovered the hair in the first spoonful and not in the last.”

Minutes later I returned with a new milkshake. I lifted the spoon with considerably less eagerness than the first time, paused, then set it back in the cup.

We laughed—a sad sort of laugh—and she pushed her plate of fries toward me.

Sorrow Upon Sorrow

Some days seem to pile on sorrow upon sorrow, usually much more serious than a cancelled trip and a hair in your milkshake.

Your car breaks down, forcing you to miss a day’s work (and a day’s pay) while still having to pay the towing and the car repair bills.

You’re stretched thin caring for an ailing family member and then you face a health crisis of your own.

You’re struggling in your marriage when you get a call that your teenager’s been picked up for skipping school.

I’m comforted that even super saints like the apostle Paul encountered overwhelming circumstances that disappointed and discouraged him. Listen to his words in 2 Corinthians 1:8–9:

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.”

Paul’s faith in God didn’t eliminate the squeeze and the hardships of living in this world. Did you catch his words? We despaired of life itself.

In 21^st century vernacular, Paul was saying, “I wanted to die.” Or maybe, “I thought we might die.” Either way, his struggle was real and deep.

How Did Paul Handle It?

Probably not with French fries and a milkshake.

He allowed himself to feel all the angst and anguish of his circumstances, but he didn’t stay there. He looked for what God might be doing in and through his circumstances. Based on what he knew about God, he knew that if God had allowed those circumstances into his life, then He had a good reason for them. God never wastes pain.

“But this happened,” Paul explained, “that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”

Maybe Paul had become overconfident in his own abilities. Maybe he hadn’t sought God’s direction or protection. Maybe he needed to come to the end of his own resources or knowledge before he cried out to God. Regardless, when he did, God answered.

“He has delivered us from such a deadly peril,” Paul declared, “and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.”

Whether God delivered him in this life or in the next, Paul knew he could trust God to accomplish His good purposes in his life.