when roads bend

In my last post, I mentioned my history of bonding with literary kindred spirits. If you know me at all, it will come as no surprise that Anne of Green Gables tops that list. Thankfully, my encouragers and sounding boards aren’t confined to the page these days, but that doesn’t prevent the occasional Anne-ism from reflecting my life back to me with startling clarity. While it’s been far too long since I picked up one of her books, this well-known quote of hers has worked wonders in renewing my creative perspective recently. Hopefully it will resonate with you, as well — if not now, then at some point along your creative journey.

‘ … [M]y future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend … I wonder how the road beyond it goes—what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows—what new landscapes—what new beauties—what curves and hills and valleys further on.’

~ Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

If you’ve been walking this creative path very long, I can almost guarantee you’ve endured the death of a dream. We’ll set aside the minor ones, for a moment — the fleeting thoughts, the passing ideas, that we dream up and dismiss just as quickly. Right now, I’m talking now about the biggies, the eat-breathe-sleep, tangled-up-in-your-heartstrings kind of dreams, the ones you are convinced you’ve been put on this earth to realize. The dreams that are tied in deeply to your calling, your identity. You’ve sought the Lord on these things, coaxed the dream into fuller life and tried to steward it so carefully. And then, in a blink, it’s over. You’re left to lift once-again empty hands to the heavens and ask … say it with me now … why?!? Surely you, too, have uttered these cries: What did I miss? I just don’t understand!

God is good, and His heart toward us is good

While it might seem in the moment like His mystery is without method — maybe it even holds a tinge of madness — nothing could be further from the truth. The God we serve is not capricious, like the gods of Greek and Roman mythology. He doesn’t play games with our fate, or dangle carrots on sticks just to see us chase them. He is good, and His heart toward us is good. If He allows us to be touched by the sting of disappointed dreams, we can be certain He has a purpose for it. 

Discerning exactly what that purpose might be is another matter. Sometimes, we’re left to wonder, submitting our trust muscles to God’s stretching and strengthening. But sometimes, the Spirit gives us a glimpse of what He’s after. If we’re patient, He may highlight the particular growth area He wants to touch through the present disappointment.

Perhaps we came to hold this dream too tightly, and He’s seeking to realign our priorities and refocus our perspective moving forward. Or possibly, the timing is not quite right: this has been the training round, intended to strengthen, build, and prepare us for what is still to come. Maybe the dream we had is too big for us to accomplish on our own, and the Lord desires to cultivate relationships around us to help shoulder the load. 

Or it could be that we’ve been dreaming too small. Consider this rather startling accusation by C.S. Lewis:

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about … when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. 

~ C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory

Almost without fail, one of the reasons God allows our dreams to die is an intimate one: He is using this place of surrender to draw us closer to Himself. Remember the patriarch Abraham, obediently holding the knife over his beloved son, Isaac? By his actions, Abraham had proven himself loyal to God. Now, the Lord wanted to test the faith of his heart. The precious dream of hope and future God had granted his faithful servant hovered a breath away from its demise. Would Abraham remain open to hearing God’s voice, even in his moment of greatest anguish? Not a moment too soon, one word from the Lord stayed Abraham’s trembling hand and opened up a Kingdom-sized legacy before him. Abraham dreamed of a family; God granted him a nation. Abraham dreamed of a settled life in the midst of foreign peoples and their gods; God granted him a relational covenant with the one true living God of all people. Abraham dreamed of a son; God granted him the Seed that would redeem all creation.

Beauty can be sifted from the ashes of broken dreams

Whatever the dream you have lost, know that God relates intimately with your grief. He, too, has experienced the heartbreak of watching His creation fall short of what He designed. But remember this: as hard as it might be to imagine, beauty can be sifted from the ashes of broken dreams. What you believe is the end, may simply be a bend in the road. It’s painful and uncertain now — and may continue to be, for a good long stretch — but the wonders to come will far outweigh the wound of the sacrifice.

Keep dreaming, dear friends! Our God is for you, and your breakthrough may be closer than you know.