Shattered Dreams

Being an only child, I developed a great imagination.
The place where my imagination flourished was in my basement.
The basement was my refuge.
With paneled walls that were all the rage in the 60’s, I had my own private place.

I often played school down my basement and pretended that I was the teacher.
I had a desk that faced my student’s chairs.
In reality, the chairs were empty.
In my mind they were filled with eager students waiting for the day’s lessons.

I had my own library down there as well.
I placed the books on a shelf with their spine facing me much like an actual library.
I had an index card file box where someone could check out their books.
I had a stamp with a date that could be manually adjusted so the card could be stamped.

Whenever a friend came over, we would often play school.
We would alternate between being the teacher and the student.
It was fun to be the librarian and stamp the library cards.
I even had a bell on my desk, the kind you see on a counter.

Ding! Ding! brought the class to attention.
I had a chalkboard and a pointer, colored chalk, and an eraser that I clapped outside.
There was a world map on the wall.
There was a globe on a table.

Of course there had to be a music class, so my record player was down there as well.
All my records, albums and forty-fives, were readily available.
As I got older, the love of music took over.
I had outgrown the days of pretending to be a teacher.

The paneled walls were then covered with posters.
I became a hairbrush singer and took the stage.
I could turn a lamp a certain way and have a spotlight on my performance.
No one saw my performances except the imaginary audience in front of me.

Dreams.
Aspirations.
Pretending.
Real life.

Sometimes the thing we dream about actually happens.
Sometimes the thing that actually happens is very different from our dreams.
Sometimes we have to lay down our dream.
It is a matter of laying down one dream so that God can Sovereignly replace it with another.

Shattered dreams are never random. They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story. The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God, to help us begin dreaming the highest dream. They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream…God is always working to make His children aware of a dream that remains alive beneath the rubble of every shattered dream, a new dream that when realized will release a new song, sung with tears, till God wipes them away and we sing with nothing but joy in our hearts. (Shattered Dreams, Larry Crabb)

According to the author, shattered dreams are God’s unexpected path to joy.
Little did I know.
Little did we all know.
What is seemingly shattered and irreparable is actually a gateway to joy.

We hold onto our dreams so tightly.
We never want to let them go.
They are ours.
We own them, it seems.

Except we don’t own them.
God does.
He has the right to change our dreams.
He has the right to shatter them.

And we cringe at the thought.
We plead with Him to let us keep our dreams.
We clench our fist and think we know better.
We hold on with a white-knuckle grasp.

Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open. (Corrie ten Boom)

God has the right to pry our fingers open.
God made our fingers.
God made our hands that we keep clenched so tightly in possessiveness.
God knows how He wants to fill our hands.

God knows.

We think we know how our lives should be.
We think we can write the script better than God.
We want to be playwright, actor, and director all in one.
That is impossible.

We exhaust ourselves trying to wear multiple hats so that we can keep our dream alive.
We run around dodging obstacles.
We take the most comfortable path.
We think the way things have always been is the way they are always going to be.

We leave no room for God.
We elbow God out of the equation.
We prop soft pillows around us so that when we are hurt, it doesn’t hurt too badly.
We shield ourselves from living because we never want to step out of our comfort zone.

Holding on to a dream that God has shattered is exhausting.
The pieces of that dream are sifting through our fingers.
We try desperately to catch the tiny fragments as they fall.
We try desperately to patch the dream back together again.

But God shattered our dream for a reason.
Often, God shattered our dream to give us a better dream.
A dream we never imagined was even possible.
A dream that had we known it was that wonderful, we would have let go a long time ago.

But we never imagined.
We never dreamed that God’s dream could be better than ours.
We never anticipated that our tears would be a pathway to joy.
We never thought that God knew best.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20, 21)

Unclench your fists.
Open your hands.
Let your shattered dream fall to the ground.
God will fill your hands with His dream, abundantly.