Shattered dreams...

Shattered...like a priceless sculpture thrown from the tallest building in the world, all my future hopes and dreams with Tony are shattered into millions of tiny pieces, never to be the same again...

I think death is best described as a series of losses. Each one, I must grieve. This week, I grieve my dreams.

I remember collapsing into the arms of my best friend Mac the day after the accident, and the only words I could muster to her were "What am I going to do, Mac, what am I going to do?" All my dreams included Tony. I feel as if someone has pressed the "pause" button on my life.

The rest of the world moves on, just as it should. I stand still.


I know all too well the verse of Jeremiah 29:11. "For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Yes, I know God's plans for me are good, they are divinely perfect because they are His plans. I've been told over and over by well-meaning people that God will still fulfill my dreams, and give me new dreams too, and that one day I'll move on. Quite honestly, were I to write a book about what NOT to say to someone who has just experienced a tragic death, that last sentence would be the basis of chapter one. I must first grieve my dreams lost, before I entertain new ones.

Instead, I cling to Jeremiah 29:12-13. "Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." We hardly ever hear that second part recited with verse 11 above. That's all I've got to offer God right now, my heart. My dreams are shattered, my life is upside down, my resources are strained, my talents and skills are overshadowed by grief, my body is weary. So, I entrust my heart to the Lord, like I entrusted it to Tony as my husband just 2 years ago.

I have a silver heart charm engraved with my initials on it. Several years before I met Tony, I had put that charm in an alabaster jar to symbolize me giving my heart fully to God until he brought me a husband. I gave Tony that silver heart on our wedding day. Now I offer it again to the Lord. My heart, despite its all consuming ache and sorrow, belongs to Him, and Him alone.

I leave you with some verses my good friend Holly sent me this week from Lamentations 3: 17-25. This is how I've felt lately:
"I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say, 'my splendor is gone and all I had hoped from the Lord. ' I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gail. I remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'the Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him. ' The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him."

Dearly loved,
Melissa