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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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