Giving up the Dreams
My head began to spin, and my stomach was instantly in knots when I looked up from my phone and back out into the mysterious chill of the November evening. My left hand rested on the rifle sitting next to me and my right hand still held my phone that I had turned off abruptly. Sitting waiting for a deer to appear from the trees, I had realized it had been a while since I had my period. I glanced at the app on my phone quickly to check when I was expecting it, in fear that blood would fill my pants while hunting.
The repetitious song of the blackbirds in the tree next to me suddenly shifted to a clanging symbol inside my brain. My thoughts raced in every direction. Six days. I was supposed to get my period six days ago. I was never late and had a very regular period by this point. I knew I was pregnant.
My husband and I had been married for six months and were loving life together. Our plan was to wait a few years before having kids, and here I was, facing an aspect of life I wasn’t anticipating even a little bit. I had a human the size of a poppy seed inside of me who would change the direction of my life forever.
Unlike my sisters, I didn’t grow up dreaming to be a mom. I knew I wanted to be a mom one day, but I was in no hurry and honestly wanted to live some life without that “burden” for a time. I had big dreams and even bigger ambitions. I felt like my husband and I had finally gotten into the swing of a new life together, and I could branch out to pursue some passions. Now this.
Darkness set in and our window for hunting closed with it. As we made our way home, I was still in shock and didn’t know how to feel. There was a part of me that was excited, but another part was disappointed. I was 19 years old and would have a baby a month after I turned 20. NOT my life plan.
My dreams haunted me like an unachievable ultimatum to motherhood. Being raised in a home that pursued Christ, my decision was easy, I must be a stay-at-home mom. It wasn’t what I originally had planned for my life, but I knew deep down, it was the Lord’s will for my life. Once the Lord had chosen for me to be a mom, I knew it was His plan for me no matter how good I thought my other plans were.
Nonetheless, it didn’t make giving up my dreams easy.
Then one sunny, Sunday morning it hit me like a breath of fresh air lifting the weight I had let my dreams become off my shoulders.
“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4
There are lots of aspects to this verse that cannot be taken out or misunderstood. It does not mean that if you are walking in God’s will, you will get what you desire. It does not mean that if you follow the rules and do what He asks of you that you are promised a comfortable life to do it in.
This verse means that if I am DELIGHTING myself in the Lord, the desires of my heart will line up with His desires for my life and they will be given to me. To delight means to have great pleasure, joy, satisfaction, or happiness. The Hebrew word used here for delight literally means to be soft or pliable. Figuratively, it means luxurious. Meaning, I must find my greatest enjoyments and pleasures in the Lord.
A person can walk in the Lord’s will for their life without delighting in the Lord. I did for years. I chose to be a stay-at-home mom because that’s what the Lord asked of me. Yet, I was not delighting in Him and the mission of motherhood he had gifted to me. I enjoyed so many aspects of being a mom and loved my husband and kids more than anything else earth had to offer, but I held onto my dreams that were outside of that will, letting them loom over my life like I was a disappointment to myself.
The desires of my heart did not line up with God’s desire for my life because my delight was not in Him and in the good works He had prepared in advance for me. (Eph. 2:10) In claiming to be seeking His will for my life, I was dragging my will behind me like a bag of bricks that hindered my joy in motherhood. In claiming to bring Him glory, I sought my own glory for what I was doing.
Your faith will crumble if you have improper motivations and expectations.
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matt. 6:21
I had to evaluate where I was building my treasure, because wherever that was, that’s where my heart’s desires were. In doing so, I discovered that my treasures were in the dreams I could no longer pursue. In the things I saw those around me doing, but I could not do as a stay-at-home mom. I was living a life that I loved but was clinging to a life I thought I wanted. I was not delighting in the Lord.
The whole world I put myself in was a lie that kept me from experiencing the delight I could have in the Lord and His will for my life. No matter how different that will may have been. I had let myself get trapped in this idea that I could never be myself after becoming a mom and that I had to give up every aspect that defined me. The truth was, I just had to peel away the ugly aspects of who I thought I wanted to be to discover that the beautiful aspects I desired were right here in my mama mission.
My kids are the biggest dream I didn’t even know I had. The old dreams that I allowed to hinder my biggest dream, could not compare. Pursuing them could never bring me satisfaction or lasting pleasure because they were not what the Lord had prepared for me. He CHOSE me to be a mama. I needed to be soft and pliable for the Lord to shape me into a woman who could find her luxury in the Lord. A woman who delighted in Him.
Delighting in the Lord and His Word gives you an eternal perspective. All the sudden the dreams you found so hard to give up mean nothing to you and the only dream you care about is the one the Lord has called you to. I must maintain a state of delighting in the Lord in order to find joy, satisfaction, and happiness in motherhood.
My heart’s desires have shifted as a mom, and they no longer weigh me down. The Lord gifts every one of my heart's desires if I am truly focused on His Glory above all else. The moment I start seeking my own glory, is the moment I am no longer satisfied in my life, and my heart becomes deceitful and wicked above all else (Jer. 17:9) desiring things for my own praise.
When my dreams do not line up with God’s dreams for my life, they will never satisfy me. The only dream worth pursuing is the one that delights my heart in the Lord.
Every time Jesus called a disciple to follow Him, He was asking them to give up their life plans. To sacrifice everything to follow Him. Why should I expect anything different? I had to come to the point of willingly laying my dreams aside to run to the feet of Jesus and say, I’m all in! No matter the cost, count me in.
It is easy to say these things, but to actually have faith with action is different. Faith without action is dead. (James 2:26)
Leaving my dreams behind me to pursue the new dreams the Lord has in store for me was an action of my faith in Him. And now on the other side, I see that the dreams He had prepared for me were FAR better than the ones I had planned for myself.
It is never easy. Jesus promised us a hard life on earth if we follow Him (John 15:19), but He also promised us the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23) amidst the chaos this world surrounds us with. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” John 14:27
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
The next hunting season, the air was warm. The evening, harvest sun showered the earth with a warm orange glow. My husband sat beside me. My left hand was resting on the riffle next to me and my right hand held the little fingers of our four-month-old baby boy. My newest and biggest dream is being a Radical Mama, and as long as I am delighting in the Lord, it will be the only dream that brings me joy, satisfies my soul, and showers my life with genuine pleasure!