Sometimes things don’t turn out right.
You start out dreaming it. You start out expecting it.
I’m gonna marry Prince Charming!
We’re gonna build a ministry overseas from the ground up.
It’s gonna bless millions for God’s glory.
We all dream these dreams as kids. But the more time we spend on this earth, the quicker our dreams and expectations change. By the time you’re almost twenty years of age, your dreams may get just a smidge smaller.
I’m gonna get out of this place one day.
I’m gonna make it through this beating.
He can’t hold this gun to my head forever!
It’ll get better by the age of 30, right? But then you stare 30 in the face and your dreams sound like this:
He cheated on me and lied.
Did he EVER love me?
All I know is this ministry and life WITH him. How do I ever transition?
Problem: that’s not a dream. That’s reality.
Sometimes the dreams you dreamt as a child are squashed by the reality of… life. The older you get, the once HUGE window of your dreams becoming reality begins to shrink till it’s barely the size of a mousehole. The simple answer of “Have FAITH… God is in control!” seems trite and a lot like another impossible dream.
You try. You muster up the last bit of faith you have…
… but sometimes, our life here won’t end up with a happy ending.
Meet my two friends: Tammy & Alece.
Those dreams listed above were theirs. Both have overcome the most monstrous and impossible hurdles. One is still in the midst of survival mode at times… but BOTH have looked life’s dirty leftovers in the face and said, “You don’t GET to choose where my dreams end up!”
They’ve changed their dreams. They’ve taken their stories and have matched them up with GOD’S story FOR them. Their stories are no longer about them… they’re about God.
Which leads me to “Plan B” by my friend, Pete Wilson. I was gonna write about the release of his book this week… but it’s so much more than a book now.
I’ve watched my friends at CrossPoint step up this past week when their community in Nashville faced the most trying devastation their area has seen in the past 1000 years. I am watching them actually BE the church to their community instead of just TALKING about it. Like Pete says… “There is the direct correlation between crisis and spiritual transformation” and they are IN crisis right now.
For more information of how to help, CLICK HERE.
It’s our chance… to be like Tammy, Alece & CrossPoint. When Plan A isn’t working out and in the midst of crisis, let’s align ourselves with God’s story… where it’s ALL about Him…
First, that photo scares me. It just seems to reek of imminent danger to all around…
And seriously…
“You muster up the last bit of faith you have…
… but sometimes, our life here won’t end up with a happy ending.”
It all depends how we define the happy ending. When you redefine how God wants it the ending can be there. At least, I sure hope so.
great point, Jason.
a “happy ending” is different in all counts, which is why i said “sometimes”. my happy ending today looks a lot different from what my happy ending was SUPPOSED to look like as a child. fairy tale happy ending may not be what we get in the end, cuz God’s isn’t a fairy tale.
i love this post! it was so refreshing & needed! thanks for putting this into words!
thanks for reading. i’m still learning all this!
it’s ok to not be where you imagined yourself. what’s important is that you’re moving in the right direction.
Wow. Have all sorts of chills after this post. Thanks for the reminder, Jenni.
Thanks for RTing me, Elora.
Great post!! Love u girls! (and I don’t even really know you!) (crazy Christian stuff)
oh… i know you. i know you’re a prankster… of LOVE… and that’s all that matters.
I know your story.
I know Tam’s story.
I know Alece’s story.
I look at that picture of you three lovely ladies and see grace and redemption. Continued redemption that slowly mends the hurts though the scars still remain.
You each are living out your plan b’s. Faithfully loving, faithfully serving.
… and thanks for making me cry.
i’m looking forward to seeing where God takes all of us in this.
Now I just re-read what I wrote and now I’m teary.
I’m looking forward to that too.
Hey Jenny (and Tam and Alece),
Recently, I realized life is indeed a fairytale but our perspective is simply way off. We forget the happilyeverafter arrives in the last sentence of the last page. Until then our prince is rescuing us. And the rescue is harrowing. Some like to call it an adventure but that sounds like it should be fun all the time. So it is best to call it a rescue with many close calls and near misses. Sometimes it’s exciting. Sometimes we can’t breathe.
This is probably obnoxious but…
Here’s a poem I call Once Upon a Time:
http://ricbooth.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/once-upon-a-time/
And a story…
http://ricbooth.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/the-fairy-tale-prison-wall/
http://ricbooth.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/knight-of-my-rescue-iii/
Ric… I get what you’re saying. That’s a positive way to look at it. Thank you for that.
However, for some of us… as much as we’d like to call it a “rescue with many close calls or misses”, it’s more like we BARELY want to survive. Some of us don’t.
Our eternity is secure if we know and believe in Jesus, but that doesn’t immediately mean we get a “happily ever after” here on earth. The Bible is chalked full of martyrs. This world is chalked full of scared and scarred people. Just because we know where we’re headed when the end arrives doesn’t make the life we’ve LIVED is fairytale-ish at all.
Ric, we aren’t in a fairy tale. We are at WAR with the Evil One. Sometimes… most of the time… we don’t have near misses. We experience full on HITS that leave us changed forever. We don’t sit and wait for the end… we move on with Plan B.
I would be one of the ‘some of us’ you describe, Jenny. And yes, we are at war but then, war is what a fairytale IS until the very last page. We are a tale in progress, so to speak. We are in more complete agreement than you realize.
maybe.
Crap, I hate it when I can’t explain myself. Anyway, I have nothing but great respect and admiration for you, Tam and Alece. I’ve followed each journey on your blogs and each of you is nothing less than amazing.
oh ric… i think you explained beautifully!
that “maybe” wasn’t negative. it was more of an “i understand!”
no worries!!!
Oh. Right. I knew that. u-huh.
(thanks)
I like the point that it’s not OUR story.. I think when pain is involved.. because it is SO intrusive and personal.. we feel like WE have to a).. b).. c).. whatever those are. And that journey because so self-centered that walk becomes centripetal.. meaning.. we then walk in circles.. when we finally decide to stop.. we see that we’re alone and then get angrier and blame everyone else.
… I’m on lap 5.
Maybe I’ll hopefully collapse. At least at that point I can be rescued. Maybe after revival the story can somehow begin to take form into His story… but right now at this part of the journey.. it sucks to be me.
However.. this blog gives me $10 of hope.
You, my dear sweet sister, have had it hard. You have had far from anything even coming close to resembling a fairytale.
I love you… and i’ll walk those laps with you because the story God has given you… IS giving you is worth sharing. You won’t be on that track running laps forever… because SOON, you’ll be trained up enough to run that marathon due to ALL those laps you’ve practiced.
The story God has written and IS writing through you will bless others. I know this… because I see you. You’ve already blessed me in so many ways.
I love you… more than you’ll ever realize, Nae!
most of the time our dreams need to die in order for God to be most glorified.
coz only He has the power to resurrect dead dreams and bring them back to life.
AMEN, sistah! you just basically paraphrased my whole post into two sentences. you rock!!!
i’m still learning to keep my eyes fixed on Him and my heart anchored in faith. i want to trust Him more than i do. i NEED to trust Him more than i do.
“Lord, help me overcome my unbelief…”
i learn so much FROM you, my dear sweet friend.
“as iron sharpens iron…” words can never express how glad i am to have you in my life.
Good stuff girl.
Glad life happened to me. Zits and all. I’m a better man for it. He spared me from myself, and I’m a better man for it.
ch:
amen! … well sorta.
i can’t say i’m “glad” life happened to me as much as i’m really glad God made beauty out of ashes. thankful, actually. it really could have gone another way, ya know.
maybe THAT’S the beauty… knowing it COULD have gone another way.
wow. alece, cathi and i read this together and we all just kept, quietly saying…”mmm. mm. hmm. wow. mmm.”
kinda really moved by the words here.
and really, really like you. a lot. and to be able to call you friend is a highlight of my life. so, thank you for being in it.
there’s a whole lot of TWSS’s in there… but because your comment sorta made me cry, i’m gonna SORTA let it go.
i love you, tammit. you make my life better. you drive me to be a better wife, mama and friend. you call me on stuff everyone else is too scared to call out. you bless me. therefore, you bless ALL those around me.
thank YOU.
sniff freakin sniff.
dangit.
JUMBO STICKS!
did that help stop the sniffing? cuz that made me LOL!
HAHAHA!
oh. i totally lol’d outloud.
I need to read that book…
we’re gonna “bookclub” it with Tam. you wanna play?
I think so… Gotta figure out if I can commit. Lots of things on my plate right now. tammit
my whole self is smiling right now
love how God has intersected so many of our plan B stories …. love that I have the blessing of traveling w/all y’all…