Titus 2 Men And Women

Death is such a final thing.  The Bible says in I Corinthians 15:26 that death is the last enemy to be destroyed.  Thus it is an enemy whose goal is to destroy the living.

The death of a dream carries with it the exact same grief experience as the death of a loved one, yet it can go unrecognized.

When you are experiencing the death of a loved one you usually have a physical body over which to mourn.  When you are experiencing the death of a dream you have nothing tangible.  The dream is gone; it has vanished from your sight.

We are all encouraged to have goals.  Goals usually represent our dreams for ourselves or for our loved ones; a much sought-after position, a talent we want to be used for the Lord’s service, seeing our loved ones saved and serving the Lord.  The list is endless, but whatever our goal might be, it’s a part of our very being.

As with any goal, our dreams are well planned.  Hopefully, we have been praying and seeking God’s will for our dreams to come true.  Much effort is put into making our dreams turn into reality.  Getting a higher education, practicing instead of playing, planning out little details that will further our goals -- we do whatever it takes to bring about the completion of our dreams.  They become a vital part of who we are.

When our dreams have been destroyed, we are in a state of shock.  We cry out, "I can’t believe it!  How could God let this happen?  I’ve worked, prayed, and put my blood, sweat, and tears into this dream, and, poof, it’s GONE!  It just can’t be possible!"

Some of us have had our dreams killed by other individuals.  This may have been purposeful or accidental, but, nonetheless, sometimes others are involved in destroying our dreams.  To those whose cherished dreams have been shattered, their grief is just as real as the grief that other individuals feel when a loved one has been killed.  They go through the same grieving process.  Blame, hurt, and anger, along with many other emotions struggle within.  They ask themselves, "How could others have hurt me so without even seeing what they have done?"  It’s like being hit so hard in the pit of the stomach that it takes the breath away.  When their precious dreams die, they feel as if they too are going to die.  They walk around like zombies, not knowing or feeling much of anything but this internal pain and grief.

What about forgiveness?  The Bible says that we must forgive those who ask.  It does not matter whether individuals have planned to destroy our dreams or not, if they ask our forgiveness we must forgive.  We do this just as much for our own sakes as for theirs.  An unforgiving spirit brings bitterness into our hearts that can cause spiritual, as well as physical, illness.  The problem is that forgiving others does not stop the grieving process.  We must still face life without our dreams just as a person who has lost a loved one must still face life without that loved one even though he/she has truly forgiven, from the heart, the one or ones who have taken that loved one’s life away.

We don’t fully understand the grieving process.  Not everyone has the same reaction or spends the same amount of time recuperating from a great loss.  Nevertheless, the steps which must be taken through the grieving process are all pretty much the same.  We are more apt, however, to see and recognize some of these steps in the life of a person who has lost a loved one before we would ever see them in the life of someone who has lost a dream.

In my life, Satan hit me with a double whammy.  Not only did I have to watch my mother slowly die, but I had to sit back and watch as a cherished dream died, too.  My problem was that I needed to put one grieving process on the back burner while I went through the other.  I had to keep my main focus upon my parents who needed me and leave my shattering dream on hold.

My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the same week that I saw my dream come tumbling down.  Instead of being met with compassion, however, I was met with accusations, and my character was put into question as angry words were being hurled at me.  I felt betrayed by those I respected most, and my mind and body rebelled against me.  As I struggled to pull my dream back together, Satan attacked me physically and spiritually.  I cried out to the Lord for help but He seemed to be just beyond my grasp.  How I just wanted to give up and fly away even as David wanted to do as he wrote Psalms 55:6.  "And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away, and be at rest."

As my mother’s condition got worse, my full attention was drawn to her needs.  I had tried to cope with the loss of my dream and go on with my life.  It wasn’t until after we buried my mom that Satan threw my lost dream in my face once more.  In my distress, I cried out, "Lord why am I reacting this way?  What is wrong with me?  Didn’t I deal with this already?"  A resounding answer came back, "NO!  You only scratched the surface!"

I continued to look to Him for understanding.  "Lord, I know that I have forgiven those who have asked me, so why am I hurting like this?  I don’t understand what is happening to me, so how can I explain it to those who ask me what is wrong now?"

During my Dad’s initial grief over the loss of my mom, different ones from my sister’s church sent tracts of comfort to him.  One day, about a month and a half after Mom’s death, a friend of my sister sent a little booklet called The Death of a Dream by Lorraine E. Strohbehn.  In this booklet lay all the answers to my puzzling questions.

Isn’t God wonderful?  Just when the time is right, He sends us the answer!  First, though, I needed to go through some of the grieving process so that I could better understand what was taking place in my life.  God had to start to prepare my heart before He could show me what was happening.

Grief is not an easy process, and it is made more difficult if one is going through two different kinds of grief.  I had to suffer, not only the death of my mother, but the death of my dream as well.  Understanding the grieving process takes time as it is, let alone trying to comprehend it twice, from two different angles.  I had never realized until I read that little booklet that I was grieving the death of a dream.  Once I started reading it, I began to understand what was happening to me, and I cried and cried.  The loss was so very great, but it was so good to finally understand what was happening in my life.  Recognizing this, however, was the easy part.  Next, I had to deal with it and also try to help others understand what I was going through.  It was so hard to try to make those who were personally involved with a part of this death understand what was wrong.  They wanted to know if I was angry with them or had failed to forgive them.  Did I need to see blood first?  How could I explain to them what was happening when I didn’t know all of it yet myself?  What I did do was let them read the little booklet for themselves, and I prayed that they would understand a little better what I was experiencing.  All of this was not easy for me either.  I wasn’t seeking vengeance.  I was seeking understanding for all of us and release of Satan’s hold.

You can not go through a death without battle scars.  The key is to know the one with whom you are battling.  (Ephesians 6:12) "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."  As I saw from the booklet, God allowed Satan to use certain individuals and circumstances to alter my dream.  God had a different plan other than my plan.  It was up to me to bend to God’s plan and continue on.

When God chose Joseph as a part of His plan for Israel’s freedom, He took him through some very difficult experiences.  Joseph had a dream, which he felt was God’s plan for him.  Instead of becoming a leader over his family, he was sold into bondage, lied about, imprisoned, and forgotten for a time by all but God.  These trials that Joseph encountered were meant to strengthen Joseph’s character and mold him to God’s purpose.  If Joseph had been pampered and praised, he might have become proud.  He might have assumed that he had earned the position that God eventually gave to him.  God had to humble Joseph so that he would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was God who had chosen his path and not he, himself.  So, too, God has to mold us.  In this molding, sometimes our dreams are altered in order for God to perform His perfect will.

Look what God did through the argument between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:36-41.  They separated because of their sharp disagreement, but they won many more to God then they would have done if they had stayed together.  What looked like dissention proved to be a part of God’s plan to further the Gospel.  Barnabas and Paul remained true friends, and later their argument proved to both of them that God was in charge.  John Mark, the cause of the argument, proved to be useful to both ministries. (II Timothy 4:11)  This should be our goal also.

This article is not meant to cast blame nor cause doubt, but it is rather intended to help us all realize that our dreams may not be God’s dream for us or for our loved ones.  I’m sure that some of us, at one time or another, have been the unwilling or unknowing pawns of Satan that have caused the dreams of others to die.  So, who is at fault when a dream has been killed?  Is it the dreamer’s fault because his/her dream maybe wasn’t in God’s plan?  Is it the fault of the unsuspecting person who was used to help pull down this dream?  The truth is that neither is to blame if the one who was used was not aware of it.  Of course, it is not our duty to judge another’s motives.  That’s God’s job.  It is not our duty to seek vengeance either.  That also is God’s job.  Our duty is to seek the Lord that we might see His purpose in allowing our dream to die.  (Isaiah 55:6&8) "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord."

God and God alone can see the whole picture.  Most of us know this, but it doesn’t necessarily occur to us while we are going through the grieving process.  Satan likes to prick us and make our emotions go totally out of control during this time.  We want to be left alone; we get angry, sad, depressed, etc., and we have no idea why we feel this way.  We can’t explain it.  We just know how we feel at that particular moment in time.  It’s not until the Lord chooses to reveal the real problem to us that we can begin to understand and deal with it.  Before He can do this, however, we must learn whatever lesson it is that God wants us to learn.  In my case, I needed to learn the difference between my dream and God’s plan.

I have no way of knowing right now why God allowed my dream to die.  All I know is that He chose to let it die.  Whatever His reason might be, I know that it will eventually be for the good of my loved ones, and that, after all, really is my dream.

This was a very difficult trial to go through.  Well, duh!  As if any trial is a picnic, right?  But I have learned through all of this that God does not close a door without opening a window even as he did for Joseph in Genesis 50:20.  Satan thought evil against me and against those involved, but God meant it unto good.

The Lord wants to use our trials and tribulations to help others, not to destroy us.  As our P.F.W. verse so adequately puts it, (II Corinthians 1:3-4) "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."  As much as I would love to avoid ever going through trials and tribulations, I know that they are what the Lord uses in order for us to help others.  It is my heartfelt prayer that this article has done just that.

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