And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, “For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him [Joseph].”

-Genesis 37:35, KJV

Giving up the dreams regarding your marriage are tough.

I had a dream of only being married once. My dream included only giving myself to one woman. I grew up in a culture where that was how things were “supposed to be.” You keep yourself sexually pure until marriage. Then you marry and stay married until death parts the two.

That dream was killed with my (now) ex-wife’s infidelity and divorce discard of me.

The discard was a mercy. I think I might have stuck in that unhealthy relationship longer refusing to let go of the “dreams” I had grown to love. Those dreams die hard.

Yet a wise person realizes when holding onto a dream is no longer serving the dreamer.

Another dream I struggled to let go of was having a spouse who knew me back when I was still a collegiate athlete. It was a huge part of my formation as a person. I wanted her to know that side of me. That dream died hard as well. I had to grieve its loss along with the others.

However…

The beautiful thing about God is how He excels at restoring and birthing new dreams in our hearts.

From the ashes of my first marriage, my marriage to Mrs. DM arose. I can tell you I would not surrender my marriage to Mrs. DM for anything.

The death of dreams can be really hard. They are real losses. However, who knows…

Maybe the death of your dreams are merely the ashes from which God with birth even better ones?!

 

 

*A version of this post ran previously.

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