If disappointment comes, it may be necessary for us to repress our feelings of dissatisfaction. If we begin pitying ourselves and saying, “Oh, it is too bad! it is just too bad!” we shall only feel the more keenly the hurt; and the more we cultivate the habit of self-pity, the more power it exercises over us. Some people have so yielded to the power of self-pity that whole days are darkened by little trifling disappointments that they ought to throw off in a few minutes. Nine tenths of the suffering that comes from disappointment has its root in self-pity. You have better qualities in you; use them. When you are disappointed, take hold of yourself and say, “Here, you can not afford to be miserable all day because of this.” Repress those feelings of self-pity, lift up your head, get your eyes on something else, begin making some new plans. Your old plans are like a broken dish and you can not use them any longer. All your fretting and brooding over them will not make them work out right. Take a new start, smile whether you feel like it or not. You have many other things to enjoy; do not let this one thing spoil them all. Refuse to think of your unpleasant feelings; resolutely shut the door against them. God will help you if you try. Another thing to learn is to submit the will and desires to God. When our plans fail, we must submit to circumstances, whether we want to or not. If we rebel, that will not change the circumstances, but it will change our feelings. The more we rebel, the more we shall suffer. The way to get rid of the suffering is to get rid of the rebellion. We must submit; therefore, why not do it gracefully? Many times we can not change circumstances, no matter how much we dislike them. Resentment will not hurt circumstances, but it will hurt us. We need to learn the lesson of submission without rebellion—submission to circumstances and to God. The Lord is our Master. It is right for him to order our lives as he sees best. Sometimes it is he who changes our plans for his own purpose; and when he does this, the outcome is always better than the thing of our own choosing. If we rebel, we are rebelling against God, and right there lies the danger. If we are so determined to have our own way that we do not willingly submit to God’s way, he may have to let us suffer. But when we submit and commit our ways to him, then we shall have the consolation and comfort of his Holy Spirit. If we will just learn to change a single letter in disappointment, and spell it with an “h” instead of a “d,” it will help take the sting out. Try it once. This is what we have: His appointment. Now, does not that make it quite different? TALK FORTY-THREE. THE BIG END OF TROUBLE I once saw in a paper some verses the first lines of which were something like the following: “Trouble has a way of coming Big end first; And when seen at its appearing, Looks its very worst.”