What happens when you lose your dreams? Most people already know but just haven’t made the connection between who they are now (or rather who they are not) and the point at which their dreams died.
I read a bible verse today that said, “The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable”. This verse is not really talking about the kind of calling I am talking about, but rather the gift of mercy that God gives us in his son Jesus, and the calling to follow and find abundant life, and then eventually eternity.
Read in isolation though that verse sounded a lot to me like, you are what God made you, anything else would be other than He intended. Just as anything other than accepting God’s gift of mercy would be other than He intended. The result is always less, much less than He would want for you.
I want to discard the notion that we are meant for great and amazing things, and yet it seems the years of disappointment, and loss and false start after false start, have cemented it so deeply in me that to discard it would be to discard myself altogether.
Sometimes however, our dreams do not leave all at once in a fell moment, but slip away slowly, almost imperceptibly as the burden of belief takes its toll. Slowly but surely, the dream is replaced by ambition, and we start to fade. Our hearts grow quieter and quieter until practicality and reason reign supreme, and we pride ourselves in our logic and command of the things of life. How to invest, who to vote for, what school the kids should go to, when to trade in the car.
The deeper lessons of life can only be learned in the struggle for something more. The difference between who you are, and who you are meant to be is the journey you could have taken, should have taken, towards your dream. And yet I feel like one of those holograms in the science fiction movies, when contact is about to be lost. It blinks once, blinks twice, everyone starts to panic doing everything they can to restore contact…alas, one final blink, and another soul is lost forever to the swirl of mediocrity that sadly is much of human existence. We might even take pride in it, make ourselves feel humble because of it. It does make us more relatable that’s for sure. After all we just joined the majority, and there is a certain peace that comes with that.
Give yourself over to it, the sweet silent death, and the greyness that follows.
This article was originally written as a Facebook note — it is one in a series of notes that has been compiled into a book called Fields of Grace. It is available as an eBook at Amazon
