Give Up On Your Dreams

    I was 25 years old when I married. Isaac was 27. Now, while we weren’t exactly pushing walkers down the isle, we felt a little old for first-time (and last :)) newlyweds. As a former education major, I felt ANCIENT. My first year at A&M, I had a professor ask all of us future educators to tell her, by show of hands, who of us was engaged or in a long-term, serious relationship. About half of the students in the class (comprised of almost all females, of course) raised their hand. That was the first day of freshman year, people! By the time I started grad. school, the people who had raised their hand were married and had children, the people who hadn’t were now well on their way, and I, well, I was wondering if I should now, in my old age, just give up and start collecting cats.

    It’s amazing how we perceive ourselves and what life looks like based on who we choose to spend it with. If I had chosen to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, I bet I would have felt a lot different about myself and what I was supposed to be doing with my life and when said life events were supposed to take place.

    In a very positive way, the same shaping and molding of one’s hopes, dreams, and future occurs when he or she moves from being unmarried to married. Oh, the world will often tell you this shaping is negative. They may accuse you of “losing yourself” in a relationship or “giving up on your dreams”. To tell you the truth, I am fully convinced that that is one of the reasons many young people are getting married at a later in age in life (on average, and unbeknownst to college-me, age 27 for women and 29 for men). We are told to make our own plans and build our own dreams, which is good, but then we’re pushed past “good” and into “unhealthy” by the insinuations or out-right directives to NEVER unclench our tightened fists that hold those dreams, no matter who comes along. Well, if you are dating a person who is holding their  dreams just as tightly, with the same unrelenting conviction that “If my future spouse doesn’t want THIS, he or she is not my future spouse!” you can see how one’s dating life can be significantly prolonged. If these people do give in and marry, they often end up despondent and disappointed in a battlefield of a marriage.

    As it turns out, and as with most things in life, the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle of the extreme “lose yourself” and “it’s my way or the highway” philosophies. There ARE some, probably many, things that need to be non-negotiables when entering into a new relationship. My non-negotiable was finding a man whose life was surrendered to Christ. Period. End of story. An aligning financial philosophy was another important thing to me. These and a few other qualities were attributes I knew I could not and should not let go of.

    And then there was the rest. The stuff I felt was really important, but that I knew was not crucial to my spirituality, sanity, or survival. The little things, “Well I like silver dollar pancakes and he likes plate-sized pancakes...”, tend to work themselves out on their own. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much the entire first year of marriage: talking--or sometimes fussing-- your way through the small stuff.

    One’s “dreams” lie somewhere in the middle of faith and pancakes, and if we have truly laid down our life for someone through marriage, dreams can and should be negotiable.

    Now, I know what some of you are thinking, and NO, I’m not saying that you have to give up your dreams to get a spouse or that marriage kills dreams or some other crazy notion. Instead, I want to communicate from the depths of my heart the incredibly wonderful news that marriage brings about dreams you never knew you had. The things that bring you joy change because as time goes on, it brings you joy to see the other person happy. There is something truly enchanting and delightful about sitting down with the person to whom, by the grace of God, you have committed your life and talking about each other’s strengths and passions and what the two of you should be doing in life to infuse those into a future together. And no, it won’t always look like what it did when you were single.

And dang it, that’s ok.

    You’re not selling out or missing out by holding your dreams loosely. It saddens me when I see marriages or families suffer because one person came into the relationship with “dreams” they just can’t let go of.

“I have always dreamed of being an artist. It is my passion. Yes, my wife worries that we can’t pay the bills and it negatively affects our marriage. Yes, it stirs within her a heart of distrust regarding whether or not I can lead our family well, but this is my dream and she needs to stop being selfish and just understand!”

“My husband’s job requires us to move constantly. Growing up, I always pictured myself in a beautiful home where I could spend time planted firmly in a community with lifelong friends. This isn’t what I signed up for!”

    Oh, how I wish in these moments I could just hug the hurting person and tell them to just “let it go.” Not so as to keep it in their back pocket for later when they need to have a trump card in a fight, and not to rub their spouse’s nose in how holy and sacrificial they’ve been, but to experience the freedom that comes with allowing God, through their spouse, to mold a new and better dream-- one that creates harmony in their home and strengthens their marriage rather than pits spouse against spouse in some cosmic point system of who’s had to give up more. The sacrifices required for the plans you make together can be done with a joyful heart because you no longer feel like you’re losing a battle against your spouse or “losing yourself”, you instead realize you are simply working for your future together.

    Letting go of dreams does feel painful at first; it hurts and is uncomfortable. When Isaac and I married, we both had completely different dreams and plans for our lives. They were comfortable and safe plans that, yeah, involved church and serving others and all of the other good things Christians should like, but ultimately centered around ourselves only. However, when we both laid down those dreams and thought of what the other was good at and passionate about and found joy in, we began concocting a dream that looked beautiful for our life together.  I thought I would be a teacher for the rest of my life, but let me tell you something, if I had clung to that dream in spite of my husband and the changing needs of our family, I would have not only become miserable in my marriage and hurt my one true love, but my dream would have become a burden, not because my husband nagged or guilt-tripped me , but because I would have lost fellowship with him and ultimately ignored the better opportunities God was trying to offer us. Trust me on this.

So, yes, give up on your dreams, for they can often be chains holding us tightly to a past that is but a fraction of what could now be.

   
With all that being said, come back later this week, as Isaac and I are embarking on a new and exciting journey towards our together-dream! I can't wait to tell you all about it! :)