A Different Dream

Sometimes I wonder how it can be so hard to let a dream die.

Just when you think you've come to the point of full surrender, of letting go, you wake up and realize that deep within the dream is still there. Suppressed maybe, but very much still there despite all heart-searing efforts to remove it.

It's an interesting feeling when your heart plays tug-of-war. One half sings. The other half cries. Yet in the end it knows what is best. It knows what will hurt least in the long run.

And that is to surrender. To let the dream die.
Because the dream was never mine to cherish in the first place…

In fact, no dream is mine to cherish.
No dream but One.

And so I pray a simple prayer.

Lord, make my life Your dream. And make my dream, You.

Photo Credit: Michel Lee

Ideal World

We are walking down our driveway treading gingerly over icy patches. And as the brisk air turns cheeks to rosy red, we dialogue. It's just the two of us, mother and daughter, surrounded by pine trees enclosed by gray sky.

My mind is full. Thoughts dart back and forth like a confused colony of bumblebees. I feel as though my life is falling apart, yet I remind myself that it is not. It just feels like it.

And as I expound on my feelings to my patiently listening mother, she starts to smile. I've always been a perfectionist, and this is no exception. But somehow I've lost perspective.

Her words gently bring me back to reality as she articulates those very things I need to hear.

I want to live an ideal life in an unideal world. And I realize that what I think is "ideal" really isn't realistic. Yet there is perfection in every step of the journey, and I must learn to love each chapter of life He brings.

So I am seeking to simply do my best and not rake myself over the coals wishing I could have "done better" when in reality I have already done my best. Because this is just another one of the devil's traps, convincing me that I am compromising when God says perfection is in the journey. It's easy to forget experientially, but I'm learning.

God looks at the heart, not the checklist.

And when He is in my life, my world is ideal.