When Dreams Don't Come True

As a young girl, we like to believe all our dreams are going to come true.

As a young Christian, we tend to imagine the same kind of happy no, blessed endings.  

Because "I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."  Plans for all your dreams to come true.  

But here I am on the healing side of three miscarriages in one year and I have to admit- I never dreamed this would be my story.  These kind of things seem wrong and unnatural and unfair and time keeps marching on and we can't ever get these years back. I think that's the hardest part, this fear of my dreams slipping out of my fingers forever.

As if dreams were something that I could hold on to. As if they were something I could bottle up and hide and protect from reality.  Protect them from God.  Because if I'm honest, I have to admit that sometimes God and I haven't seen eye-to-eye on what is valuable and worth preserving. 

But then I remember...
I remember that once upon a time an unnamed, sinful woman came scandalously into a Pharisee's home to see Jesus.  She came and she lay at his feet, but she didn't come alone.  She brought an alabaster flask of expensive perfume, her very own bottled-up treasure, and she likely busted it open over his feet.  

There under the condescending whispers of judgement, she washed his filthy, human feet with her tears and her hair and the poured-out abundance of her fragrant, broken treasure. 

And Jesus spoke above the whispers and gave her something greater than perfume; he gave her forgiveness.  He gave her salvation.  He gave her something eternal and it was all she really wanted.

I run my fingers across the pages of his Word. Do I want to cling to my little bottle of dreams and try to fight with God about this, insist on re-writing my own story? Or will I let some things be broken in a beautiful, fragrant moment of surrender and accept the story that he is writing?  

The story with fallen Goliaths, of a Queen's crown set on an orphan girl's head, of broken bottles of costly perfume, veils torn, love poured out as blood is spilled but he lays down his life to take it up again.

Do I have the strength to be a part of that kind of story? 

I have to and I want to.

Because he is GOD.  And this is not my story to write and I don't want to write it.  His mind is bigger and his heart stretches further and he is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or even imagine for ourselves. 

Which really just means that He is the Dreamer who dreams best for me and I'll trade my little bottle for his Story any day.