Garden Variety Neurosis

I am tired, and will shortly be going to bed, but I needed to take some time to write about a couple of things. I could probably sleep just fine without doing this, as I am very tired, but I think I need to get this out.

I learned tonight that sometimes the sweetest gift is a desire unfulfilled. I am learning that knowing the truth about a dream that will never be a reality can be the beginning of freedom, permission to let go and move on.

Certainly, letting go is difficult, and comes at a price. There is pain. Sometimes great pain. There is sacrifice required as you learn to tailor your life to the new reality you are faced with. There is the choice to live in that reality, and stop pursuing what was never meant to be yours to begin with.

Yet, for all of that, there is also joy. I think it is a God-given joy. There is joy in knowing that, no matter how difficult it is to let that dream go and experience the sense of abandonment that may come with that letting go, God is your constant. Where such a shattered dream may once have caused me to feel hopeless despair, I have come to a place of knowing that letting go of such dreams only means that God has bigger and better things to come.

I think we all come to these places in our lives, in one way or another. Sometimes it is concerning a relationship, other times a career choice or moving to a specific place, or all of the above. It is difficult to let go of what we want, and to do so with any sense of peace. It is difficult to lay it to rest, not out of despair or a sense of unworthiness, but simply because you finally realize that it just simply isn't meant for you. The act of laying it down is not an act of surrender to hopelessness, but it is the laying down of a burden so you are better enabled to go forward and embrace the greater things that God has for you.

The dream of which I am speaking is purely a matter of the heart, and after facing the reality that the dreams I have cherished there simply were not meant to be, I am now faced with the choice to either curl up in despair, or go forward in eager anticipation of what God has for me. I am choosing to go forward, even though it will hurt for a season...but going forward nonetheless, believing with all of my being that laying down this broken dream only means that God has better things in store for me, things that will go exceedingly and abundantly far above all I could ever ask or think.

I realize that it will be difficult to leave it at the foot of the cross, and not ponder the "Why?" of it all...but I also realize that I have the power to make the moment by moment decision to trust God, to believe that He knows what is best for my life, that while I can only see what is right in front of me, He sees the whole picture, and He has amazing things in store for me.

"And the wonder of it all is that I'm living just to fall more in love with You..."