What are we supposed to do when our hearts are broken and our dreams can’t come true

We all have hopes and dreams, but what are we supposed to do when our hearts are broken and our dreams can't come true? 

 

That's the question I found myself staring at recently within a Bible study I am doing with a friend, and gosh if it didn't hit me right in the gut. Reflecting back on this now over a year of life I've been living.

 

Today, would have been our 25th wedding anniversary. 

 

I am not sure what it was about the number 25, but I always felt like I would have 'made it' after 25 years.  Really made it.  Who gets married at 20 and stays married for 25 years (...and beyond)?  This is something I was dang proud of ... until the reality of that happening was pulled out from under me and I was left with a broken heart and broken dream multiplied infinitely past what I could see. 

 

Were those years perfect?  No.  But we always seemed to find a way to make the best of it. 

 

It's interesting for me to look back at that singular hope and dream, and think about what am I (what was I) supposed to do when I found myself broken-hearted and with a shattered dream. 

 

With death, especially the death of a spouse, there is not one but a lifetime of hopes and broken dreams that you create together that just won't ever happen. They shatter instantly and over and over again as you realize them, which brings on so many different emotions and waves of grief.  You grieve for the person you lost, but with every other dream that will never become reality, you grieve that too.  I think this is just another layer of why losing a spouse is so dang hard.  It's not just the initial loss, but it's all the other losses that come with it. The holidays, the birthdays, the anniversaries, the hopes and dreams, all the things that never will be. 

 

I could lament on that for the rest of my life, but what good would that do?  None.

 

If you've been around my page long enough you know that this is not how I chose for the story to end, but I think it's a really-real thing to feel like we got short-changed in life. Like we somehow we got ripped off.  Sitting in this thought of ripped off / short-changed made me angry, and sad. 

 

For months after Joe died, I felt like I got ripped off in life.  I found a lot of anger in this space, and as I was thinking about anger this week, it took me back.  It took me back to just how angry I was at God, and at Joe, for his death.  I was angry for the things I would miss out on as his wife, as our kids grow up, and every bit of life in between.  I was just really angry.  Anger in and of itself scares me. It's not an emotion I am very familiar with, but I think the anger gave my sorrow a place to reside for a while.  It allowed me to dry my face for a bit and find emotion in something else.  That emotion is no less intense than the sorrow I had been feeling, in fact in a lot of times, it was much stronger.  Anger allowed me space for stubborn action. It allowed me a bit of resilience to move forward, where sorrow had me paralyzed and content with apathy.

 

Through all the emotions that grief brings, there was this underlying peace to my life that said, you'll be ok.  I think I spoke that into existence. People would ask me how are you doing, and my canned response was, I'm going to be ok. My heart is broken, but I will be ok. Deep down inside, I knew I would be ok.

 

I believe God put that in me.

 

...and I am. I am ok.

 

The word itself OK seems so small and mundane, but it leaves so much room for more and that is why I use it. I'm OK, and I know there is so much more to go and grow.

 

Today, I find myself in a new space of hopes and dreams. They of course look much different now, but it's exciting to see what God's plans are for the rest of this life he's given me. There's excitement in how I get to co-create with Him to continue to write this story. It's a story of great loss, but it's also a story of His promises and redemption.

 

So we come back to the initial question, what are we supposed to do when our hearts are broken and our dreams can't come true?

 

You put your heart back together.

Fix your face on Jesus. 

You dream with God and make new dreams.

Move forward, scared and excited. You just have to move.

 

Then...

Live life. 

Love big. 

Be excited for what's to come.