broken dreams and the Lord's ok.

The Lord's been helping me face something the last few weeks, and I'm thankful always for you to help me work through it. 

Even the expression "broken dreams" has always been cheesy to me. Who has time for dreams when there is work to be done? Who after 15 is chasing after dreams, anyway? We're not ours, but His, and it's always been my goal to be used by Him, His way, and I guess I've never spent much time thinking about what MY dreams are.

Even if you'd asked me years ago, 20,  what my dream was, I would have said, "Whatever God has for me!" and I would have been true, and satisfied with that. 

So when a few weeks ago,  a song came on my phone I'd never heard before while I was brushing my teeth and I started unexpectedly bawling, tears pouring with my toothpaste, I was so confused about that that was all about. I cried myself to sleep, still trying to work through why that song hit so hard, and realized kind of sheepishly a few days later that the lyrics went straight after a dream I hadn't realized I even had, that has since been shattered.

For example. I never would have said, ever, that one of my dreams was to have parents past my 40's. Never at 20 or even 35 would I have said, "It's my dream to have my future kiddos know my parents."

But now they don't, I painfully realize that that WAS a dream I had. That was a desire I always had for my life, of course it was! My mom and dad in my life today, in the lives of my children...of course that is a dream I had! And I didn't even realize I had it until it was broken...and in moments when that brokenness stings so badly.

It's why when Ben flops into bed at night and says, "I wish Grumpa could come to my baseball game," it springs instant tears to my eyes. Yes, because I miss Grumpa, too, but more, because I wish that more than just about anything for my boy, and yet it is not possible. That dream is gone and broke. Can't fix it. Isn't getting fixed this life.

The song that brought me down a few weeks ago spoke boldly of a dream I hadn't even realized I had but of course I did, and now it is broke and can't be fixed. It is a broken dream, nothing I can do.

So what, Lord, do I do with this? I've been asking Him, since I realized the painful pieces in my hands. 

I was getting no answers, and sifting through the pieces wasn't helping me put them back together, nor come to any peace.

Finally, I came out straight with Him.

Lord, I had this dream. I held it out to Him. It was a GOOD one and it shouldn't have been that hard, and now it's broken. You know. You were there. I don't know what to do with this painful pile of broken dream now. It hurts me and is beyond me and can't be unbroke the side of heaven. So.

Imma need you to take it, and...and handle it. 

Please.

My prayer was about that eloquent, and I didn't even have the wisdom or hope to tell Him what to do with it, or my normal audacity to make any suggestions. 

Just, You're gonna hafta take this broken dream.

And you know what He very clearly said? 

Ok.

That was all. That was it. 

He didn't tell me what He's gonna do with those shards. Maybe something awesome and beautiful and redemptive. Maybe nothing but hold them. 

But His ok, I realized almost instantly, was more than enough for me. I don't much care what He does with that dream, because I trust Him, and I can't carry it without a constant unraveling and stabbing in my own life.  He's got it, my broken dream, and that's enough for me.

Which makes me realize the dream I had of living in Haiti and serving there with my whole life, He can have that broken dream, too.  The dream I've had of traveling so many places--among so many people and cultures, coming alongside, and that grows dimmer every day--it's one I can't reconcile that He can surely have instead.  The dream of raising babies with my sister. Of hiking all the widest places. Of living on an island and aiming it all at Jesus, every barefoot mud hut day...of being a foreign missionary, always, of having my parents, alive and involved and beautiful....all those dreams, broken or not.

He can have them. I'll take His ok. 

What are your secret stabs, friend?  Is it possible instead of carrying them--unable to be fixed or worked through or fabricated by our own blood, sweat and tears--you'd rather entrust Him to handle them? 

Whether He remakes them with power and glory and beauty from ashes...or sets them on His shelf to die while He does totally different and new things at His workbench...wouldn't you rather HE? 

I am entrusting Him to my broken dreams, and tenderly and completely, He said ok.