Sometimes as I look at all my friends and family who have had the most significant dreams in their lives come true, I wonder why some of mine have not. It does not seem fair that their dreams would come true and I would be sitting here waiting and trying to trust God that He will make it happen when it is supposed to. I do not want to wait. I want my dreams to come true.
So with those thoughts in my head recently, I was challenged by an article I read a week or so ago on Boundless (the college/young adult webzine and blog from Focus on the Family). The article was called Things I Won't Be. It is written by someone who has an understanding of what it is like to wait for marriage and children.
Marriage and children - a dream that, if I am honest, I have had since I was a little girl playing house or Barbies with my sisters. I may have spent a number of years running from anything that remotely resembled that (as I grew a little bit older, I spent far more time playing sports with the guys in the neighbourhood or playing with Lego or cars, than with "girly things"). I may have even denied that I ever wanted to get married and have children of my own for a few years. But, the truth is, down deep inside it is what I desired and what I dream(ed) about.
And so, now I find myself wondering why it is not yet my turn as I attend another one of my friends' weddings and help my sister plan hers (after having my other sister get married not that long ago). I am truly happy for my friends and my sisters. But, sometimes it does get hard to go to another wedding and wonder when your turn will finally come - when your dream will finally come true.
As hard as it is sometimes, in the midst of those wondering and feelings of how unfair it is, that is a time when we can grow in our relationship with God. It is in those times that we have choices to make. We can choose to become bitter about it or we can choose to trust God. And in choosing to trust God, we take our dreams, our desires, our wondering about when our turn will come to Him. We pour out our hearts to Him.
And after we have done all of that, we get up and we keep on going with life. We keep on serving God. We keep on obeying God. We keep on loving the people in our lives. We keep on trusting God. We keep on waiting for God's leading. We keep on waiting for God's timing. We keep pouring our heart out to God. We keep on going. And we keep on hoping that one day it will be our turn.
I will be honest, many times it has seemed like it would be much easier to just give up on the dream - to try to squash it and any of the feelings that come along with it. On the surface it seems like that would cause us the least disappointment with our lives. It seems like that would make it easier to continue to pursue that education or to continue to "climb the ladder" at work. But, ultimately, that will not satisfy. In fact, trying to squash it will make it more difficult to deal with the dream. We are better off to acknowledge it and to embrace it and to continue to take it to God. He is the One who can satisfy and who can give us the strength and courage it takes to keep on going with life while we wait.
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