When I was a young girl, what I wanted more than anything else was to be a wife and mother. I spent countless hours imagining my future family, including two or four children and a handsome and romantic husband. And, of course, all of them would adore me. That was a given. As for a career, my aspirations change day by day. But my desire for marriage and children never wavered. Naturally, I spent the better part of fourth-grade science class sitting across from my nine-year-old crush, writing my soon-to-be married name and dreaming up the names of our future children in a spiral notebook.
In my imagination, everything would be perfect. Like a framed photo on the fireplace mantle. Ours would be the best of families, full of memories and laughter and prayers around the kitchen table. I would make sure of it.
Bless my little nine-year-old heart. I had no idea the form real life would take.
Sometimes, dreams don’t deliver. One day, you’re doodling imaginary baby names, and the next day, you’re holding one of those babies on your hip while your husband drives away for the last time. Sometimes divorce and disconnect and loss tear the family picture right down the middle, leaving little of the original image in its aftermath. And when that happens, sometimes all you can see in the faces of the people around you is grief and loss. What does a nine-year-old girl do then?
A few weeks ago, my second son got married. All of us came together — me and my now long-time husband, our other five children, one additional daughter-in-law, and a grandma — to celebrate the pure joy of our son and his new wife. It was a small celebration, exactly what the bride and groom wanted, maybe thirty people total. As the night neared its end, I stopped all my celebrating simply to take in the room. I slowly scanned every face, all the different people represented.
This is what I noticed:
First, I saw evidence of disrupted dreams everywhere. Marriages that didn’t last, careers that suddenly changed, adults and children alike who struggle in their day-to-day lives. Between the bride and groom, four separate families were represented. “In-laws” and “ex-laws” filled the room, the broken and blended families creating a complex dynamic. I’m sure I’m not the only one who once imagined our family would look different, more whole, than the picture I now saw.
But I also noticed the beauty. Despite all that our family has endured, we’re still here. We love each other, forgive each other, and show up for each other. It may not look like we’d once imagined, and there’s nothing I can do about that. But I watched my son’s eyes light up with love, my newest daughter-in-law shine like a princess in a fairy tale, and my entire crazy crew laugh and celebrate in the middle of much love, hope, and redemption. And the beauty of it took my breath away.
As we walked back to our car after saying goodbye to the bride and groom, my mom looked at me and beamed: “Oh Michele, I just love this family of yours.”
Me too, Mom. Me too.
No, this is not what the little girl dreamed of in her spiral notebooks. I never imagined I would have such a complicated, imperfect family. But I also never dreamed my God could take such a mess and make something so blindingly beautiful out of it.
King Solomon knew something of the angst that accompanies midlife reflection and regret. He wrote Ecclesiastes, at least in part, to process the many ways life doesn’t always pan out. Perhaps that’s why some call Ecclesiastes the Book of MidLife Crises. I certainly can relate.
But even amid Solomon’s angsty musings, he also recognized the hand of God at work in the middle of it:
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart;
yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV
That’s it exactly. My God makes everything beautiful in its time. Our family — my life! — doesn’t look anything like I thought it would. I need to acknowledge that truth, bury the dream, and allow myself to grieve at the graveside.
But if I stop there, I’ve missed the miracle of it all. Because of God’s great mercy and grace, He has turned the ashes of my dream into a beautiful and redemptive story. Stunning, breathtaking, faith-building.Who could imagine such a gift?!
My friend, do you have an old dream you need to relinquish? You can trust Him with it. Ours is a God who takes the bones of dead dreams and puts new flesh on them, breathing new life into them (see Ezek. 37:1-14). He takes the mistakes and missteps and says, “Behold! I make all things new!” (Rev. 21:5). And when we choose to release regrets and disappointments to what God is yet doing, tears are transformed into new hope and resurrected joy.
Beautifully written, Michele. I have given up on so many dreams. It took some time to accept where I am now. And while I still have hopes for some things to change, I have a wonderful life and try to make the most of it. I am grateful for my past, even those hurtful times, and look to see what the future may hold.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing, Madeline. It takes work and intentionality to reframe how we view our life and story. But it’s worth it.
I love your devotional… it reminds me of two dreams/desires I used to have, yet over the years God changed my desires. In my 30’s I prayed for a child, I even begged God, but I never got pregnant. My husband and I were never blessed with children. In my 40’s my desire for children went away and I was satisfied that we had “Spiritual” children through our homeless ministry. Glory to God. A decade ago I had a dream to write a book… I even took a week off work and got much of the book written. That next weekend I had a breakdown and was hospitalized for a week. I believe God stopped me from writing the book. (I think He wanted me to grow more and have a more compassionate heart). Yet my desire changed and I don’t really have a desire to write a book. I love the verse, “delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart”, and I love how God changes our desires as we delight in Him and grow closer to Him. 🙂
Wow, this is powerful, Amber. Those are big dreams and disappointments, which came with no small amount of grief, I’m sure. I admire your determination to trust our good Father in all things! Press on, sister. The best is yet to come!
This hit the spot today it’s. It’s my birthday and I had yhe same aspirations and dreams as noted in this article. And life did not go that way. I became a successful business woman and although I had a family I never had the opportunity to stay home and be the kind of housewife and mom that I wanted to be. But as you say there’s so much to be thankful for. There are so many beautiful things in my broken family to acknowledge and be grateful for. God is good.
Happy birthday Debbie!
I love that you told our fellow sister “Happy Birthday.” 🙂 You’re a light, Lynne!
Goodness, I feel this, Debbie. I had always wanted to have a houseful of babies. As it turns out, I only gave birth to one (lost one in pregnancy). And this felt like a significant grief. But then, as only God can do, I ended up with six total children, through marriage and foster-adoption. I definitely have a house filled with family! It just didn’t look like I thought it would. Some days this feels like grief, and other days it feels like a gift. They go hand in hand. Thank you for sharing and reflecting here. It encouraged me!
Also, HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! 🙂
Happy birthday! May today be especially filled with proofs of how loved you are! (((0)))
Michelle,
Thank you for sharing… God is so good. I can look back at my life and see his hand taking and making all the bad into bearable…and even sometimes good! I trust God with my future!
Sending you Easter joy,
Lisa Wilt
Yes, yes, yes! I’ve had the same experience. Sometimes the goodness surprises me! 🙂 Only God. Happy Easter to you, too, friend.
Oh Michelle – this is a beautiful gift! Hot, happy tears of joy through the broken. Thank you for sharing. You made my day.
Oh, Tenneil! I am so happy to hear this. I know there is much grief behind those tears, too. But I’m so grateful to God that His joy broke through today. Much love, sister.
Dear Michele…….When I opened my email,I was instantly curious about your words in the block on the right. I couldn’t wait to read your devotional. As I read, I thought what a lovely story at 9 years old that you had everything planned out. I hoped that it turned out that way, but as I continued to read, the story seemed to get very sad as you got older. I must say that I never thought about it when I was that young, but when I got to college, I did, and I had it all planned in my mind. In the beginning of my second year, I met this guy who I fell for as soon as I saw him. I was in a class and sat next to him. He talked to me at length until the Professor arrived. He was fully Irish on both his mothers and fathers sides and though I can’t mention his name, it was obvious. From the end of that class we were always together between classes and in the evening we girls had an 8PM curfew, but the boys could be out whenever. Boy, have things changed there. As the year went on my story got even more extended in my mind deciding many things that you need to talk about before you get married. We professed our love to one another. I cried as he told me as I thought, it sounds like my dream will come through. The answer to that was NO. We went home for the summer, but he would hitch-hike up to my house, a long distance, just to see me. When I went back to school for my 3rd year, I went to our student center as my roommate was not back yet and I ran into my guy’s roommate there and asked if my guy was back next. He gave me an odd look and he said to me,” Betsy, didn’t he tell you?” I said tell me what? He said I can’t believe he didn’t tell you he was not coming back here, he was transferring to a bigger school with big fraternities. I feel down in a ball of tears and did not know what to do. I actually felt worse for the roommate left without his knowledge to tell me. He started crying too. The love of my life never called me and I had a nervous breakdown. Still don’t know where he is, but I found out that he was arrested for something that I couldn’t think he would ever do. This is not the end of my life story, but that is too long. I will just say that I started to date when I was back home and I was raped, and in 3 weeks I knew I was pregnant. The guy told me to get an abortion. I refused so we had to get married. Neither of us wanted to marry the other, but because of the coming baby, we did. It was a terrible marriage as he was nasty, a sex addict and a heavy drinker. I can’t go any further as I have taken up enough of your time. He has dementia and tried to kill me so I had to evict him from the house. Now at 77, I am living in one facility and he at another. Michele, I am so happy for you that even though your 1st dream did not work out, it certainly sounds like it did, but in a different way. God is like that. I pray so much for some joy in my life, but I can’t get all of this out of my mind no matter how I try. Two men and two large messes. I hope your health is going well. I know how that is too as I had 5 very serious operations and were also complicated. 2 of them I almost died to the surgeons mistake and the pain was sometimes so bad I had some really bad seasons, one after another. I send my prayer to you that you are well and for sharing your very wonderful story where God in his time has made your life full of joy……….Betsy Basile
This is an incredibly long devotional to read in the mornings. Each day they get longer. I’m not digging the influencer style of social media content on IG either this year. Maybe I’m just not your target market. I’m afraid I need to unsubscribe and already unfollowed. I like your parent company’s devotions daily. They are a quick and to the point read. See, you probably have not read this whole comment because it just got too long, didn’t it? I wish you success but think you need to pivot on your current strategy.
Kim, as part of Young Life ministry to high school students, my training included the question ” how long should the gospel talk be?’ There was a pause in the room as we thought back as to how long the talks we’d heard had been. Then a small voice from the back said “as short or as long as is needed to make the point.” That has stayed with me for over 50 years. I find the writers on this site to utilize that approach. I too do not always have time to read them in the morning so either skip them altogether or read them later in the day or at bedtime. I am blessed whenever I find time to read them but these are not the only devotional tools available to us (we are SO spoiled!) so use what works best for you in each time frame. God will lead you & bless you! Happy Easter season! (((0)))
I have always hated the interview questions, “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” “What are your personal dreams?” I never felt that I had dreams or could visualize the future very far out. I was so touched in the verse to Delight yourself in the Lord & He would GIVE you the desires of your heart, I didn’t worry about dreaming, just following where He took me.
I assumed I’d be married one day but as I approached my late 20s I told God I’d be the best single He had unless He changed things. I got married to my better half the year I turned 30. We’re just now starting to “dream” about retirement but I think that’s God’s way of preparing us toward our second act otherwise we’d work til we keel over.
I enjoyed reading about yours & others dreams. God wired us differently but He’s still in the business of redeeming & leading! Blessings (((0)))
Ecclesiastes is *wild* first of all. 🙂
But yes! Our dreams go “poof” but God makes beauty from mud, from ashes, from sunlight, from nearly anything. The middle of the story – and seeing ourselves be very imperfect – is hard, though.
Thank you for this!
(… also, please don’t make incourage devotionals shorter per the comment above; sure, sometimes they *are* shorter, and sometimes that’s the right length for that particular devotional’s thought, but in general, please give a thought enough room to breathe; it sticks better than if the devotional is as short as possible!)
Thank you Michele. Your life story and writings have been invaluable to me as I’ve navigated through many difficulties in the past, and because life is so daily!☺, the struggles continue and your messages continue to be a powerful and encouraging voice in my heart and mind. May God bless you with health, peace, and strength to continue living redesigned dreams and helping each one of us as well. You are such a blessing to so many of us.❤