"Not every one of our desires can be immediately gratified. We’ve got to learn to wait patiently for our dreams to come through, especially on the path we’ve chosen. But while we wait, we need to prepare symbolically a place for our hopes and dreams.”
-Sarah Ban Breathnach
There is something I desire more than anything else in the world. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but I will tell you it feels not just unlikely, but impossible. Waiting patiently for this dream to come true is not easy; I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted before. I’m afraid that when the time has passed for being patient, I will find, at the end, my dream unfulfilled. And by then, I will desire it even more and the not-having will be even more painful that it would be now.
So I’m puzzling over this quote, wondering how to “prepare symbolically a place for (my) hopes and dreams.” My gut says this is important, that it’s a tangible way of having faith. Perhaps if I prepare a place for something I don’t have yet, and I allow what I do, say and how I behave to be influenced by the dream’s symbolic presence, I will be changed. Perhaps that change will make me more able to receive the reality of my hopes and dreams. Almost like a hope chest...storing up things for a life you don't have yet.
Perhaps it's like walking forward in the dark, unable to see anything, but believing that I will come to the place where there is light if I just keep walking.
What do you think about this quote?
7 comments:
My first reaction to the quote is defensive. Whenever someone (anyone!) tells me, "We've got to learn..." Or "We need to..." my defenses go up, my eyes glaze over and I resist the bonds! :) Some of what that person has to say could very well be worthy of my attention but it has to be something *very* worthy to get past my defenses. I can't even get on the "hope" part of what Sara is saying. ♥
I understand that, Holly...totally. I often have a similar reaction to those very same terms: "got to," "have to" or "need to."
Hey Cheryl, when I read it, I can't deny the profound wisdom. But it does conjure up a sense of fear in me. Part of it is the waiting...I'm impatient. But...
What happens if this symbolic place becomes nothing more than a junk box of dusty, broken dreams and hopes. To remind me how crazy I am, or to remind me that maybe this faithful God...is a not as faithful as I think. So in the end, fear, wins out and I never create the place, and never really find out.
I know, Ron. I have that same fear. It's paralyzing.
I don't know about you, but when the thing I am hoping for/dreaming about involves another person, there is always some room to believe that something will shift or change inside of them. There's always the chance that something about me will move them in a new way.
But when that thing I'm hoping for/dreaming about involves God, I am less optimistic. God doesn't change, according to Christian belief. I'm not sure he is "moved" by my pleas.
The question that keeps knocking around in my head about my desire for a connection with God that is personal is this: how long do you wait? What if that waiting cheats you out of enjoying the life you DO have?
" What if that waiting cheats you out of enjoying the life you DO have? "
I totally get that. I think og my girls when they were toddlers, being consumed by them...living in their world. Kids just seem to be able to live in the moment. Chasing a butterfly, in a field filled with flowers...they are eternal moments. I just wonder in the waiting will we miss moments like those. Maybe my big hope, and dream might be to live each moment for all that it's...and see what grows out of it.
"Live each moment for all that it is...and see what grows out of it."
Love that, Ron. That may be my new motto. :)
Just want to say tonight to possibly no one, but that's o.k....I'm making a place for my hopes and dreams...making a hope chest...stepping out into the dark. I have to. I can't explain it other than to say that if I can't risk everything for something, what the fuck is this life really about?
I would risk anything to protect my kids. I would lay down in front of traffic. Non-negotiable. Don't have to stop and pause to think. So why would risking my heart being broken, my hopes being dashed and my dreams being crushed be something I sit back and ponder?
I have talked and written in the last months about love being a "rushing toward one another as fast as the other is rushing toward you," nothing held back. So what if the other isn't rushing back, whether that is another human or even God?
All I know is that, for the first time in my life, I am rushing with everything in me and that rushing being reciprocated is not an issue. For real.
I know what I desire and I will keep hoping. I will keep building that place for my hopes and dreams, with no guarantees that it won't become the very spot upon which I receive the sharpest, deepest heartbreak. If that's what happens, so be it.
I have one life to live and not going to die wondering what would have happened if I'd risked it all for something. No holds barred. I'm all in.
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