I recently read the following statement: everyone has to give up on certain dreams in life. The more people you meet, the more you see in the way of broken dreams. And that people are coming to terms with something they expected to happen but didn’t.
Does it sincerely have to be like this?
I know we have expectations that should have materialized, but haven’t. I think that, all things being equal, perhaps these expectations are meant to materialize in a different way than we initially envisioned. I had an expectation, about 3-4 years ago, that I gave up on. When I read this statement it felt like the dull edge of a knife awakening the phantom wounds of times past: endless tears, and the acrid taste of bitterness that singed my veins like a thousand pin-needles. How do you describe walking around, breathless? Cruel as it may feel, there are things that you have to come to terms with.
I think what made the “coming to terms” exceptionally bitter was that it wasn’t a choice that I made confidently. It’s one thing to say you don’t want something, and your mind, body, soul and spirit are in agreement. And perhaps that’s what makes it hard – we experience things that often are beyond our control, and we are forced to make decisions that we would not have made if the situation had been different.
I guess I’m writing this because I don’t like the idea of “having to” give up certain dreams in life. As if I don’t have a say on what I choose to let go; like the choice is made for me and I have to accept it. Even so, I remember that I, too, had that season of coming to terms with certain broken expectations.
Yet, as is often the case for me, this resignation begs the question: where, amidst all this, does God factor in? He who is able to call forth those things which are not as though they were; He who speaks to the dry bones for flesh to appear, bringing dead things back to life; is He not able to restore?
He is. And that’s why I don’t agree with the first part of the statement. Hope can feel like an ember of flame that is easier to let go of than hold on to. How do you have hope when the mountain reaches the heavens, and you have little strength to overcome? But God is a restorer of broken things; an expert at doing new, and unexpected things; of gathering all those broken expectations and giving you something new, something better, and assurance that it’s worth hoping for.
All this to say, we need hope. Not just the casual hope we offer to each other to comfort the losses of the past. But the kind of hope that lets you see that what has passed does not compare with what is ahead of you. The kind of hope that brings the peace of that expectation and powers hope’s flame. So that we no longer experience the loss as a great defeat and forfeiture of our destiny, but as a slight detour to grab hold of what could have been lost. A different package of the same blessing, if you will.
So, let God give you hope. Let him construct your dreams. Allow him to give you a new gift, a new expectation. That dream, that gift, that expectation won’t be as though you’re being forced to accept something that you don’t want. You’ll like it, you’ll want it, and you’ll fight for it. And sometimes, because He is so kind, He’ll restore the very thing that you thought you’d never get back.
