Surrendering the Dream

A farmgirl in an orange sundress with a secret dream, burgeoning trust in God and complete surrender–how could they possibly be connected? 

It all started in the summer when I was eight years old. During that summer, the seed of a lifelong dream took root in the fertile soil of my heart. My dream was to be a wife to an adoring husband and mother to a large family. In my spacious kitchen, I would preside over my large family, gathering them around my long farmhouse table laden with the homemade meals I loved to cook.  

I entrusted that dream only to my heavenly Father. He and I shared this secret; He would protect it and it could grow strong and flower beneath His care. Entrusting Him with my precious secret was massive in my eyes. 

I got married, and in time, my preemie twin boys were born. Matthew’s special needs were glaringly obvious and I was stunned. The dream I entrusted to my Father’s care was not playing out as I imagined. Questions crashed wildly in my mind: Had I misunderstood Him? Had I been duped? This was certainly not His plan; or was it? 

It was. 

My farmgirl-sized faith would have to grow up to meet the challenges that this life required. Life as a mother to a son with severe special needs, in addition to a typically developing son, required deep, strong faith. My farmgirl faith had to grow up very quickly to meet those challenges. 

I’d known God to be faithful, but was not accustomed to the faith required for the hard road ahead of me. If it was my relationship with God that would carry me on this difficult journey, it would have to grow much deeper and stronger very quickly. If trusting Him was truly the key to a deeper relationship I had to learn that He was truly worthy of my trust.  

We learn to trust God the same way we learn to trust anyone. It would be foolish to trust someone we don’t truly know with anything important to us. However, as Christians, we are repeatedly asked to trust God with our entire lives and our eternity.  Entrusting ourselves to someone we do not know, for this life and eternity is a big ask if we aren’t sure who He truly is or what He wants from us.

However, I knew that if He were truly who He claimed to be, it altered the entire picture. If the same God who formed the earth and the worlds was my closest Friend, the potential difference was astronomical. My road was still rough, but my traveling Companion was all-knowing. If the One who led me was truly the Firstborn of All Creation, God Incarnate, my risen and exalted Savior,  I had access to wisdom and power that transcends all things simply by walking in intimate friendship with Him. If I truly had a one-on-one relationship with the Living God, He would be all I would need for this difficult journey ahead. 

I found that this heavenly Father who protected my girlhood dream, was the same God who created heaven and earth, decimated Egypt with plagues, divided the Red Sea and thundered from Sinai. This One Who inhabits eternity cared tenderly for my boys and me, was close to me in my pain, and listened to the tearful prayers I raised from my kitchen. 

In His sovereign wisdom, He truly holds all things together. Nothing takes place without His prior knowledge, including my harsh and painful circumstances. Matthew’s special needs, this life of isolation, exhaustion and constant caregiving was no exception. Hardship is chief among the core curricula in His school of growth and maturity.   

I would need to trust Him implicitly. I would need to follow Him when the trail was treacherous, even when darkness fell.  Whatever He asked of me I would do. Wherever He led, I would follow, even if it made no sense to me. As God, He knows the past, present and the future; that is knowledge and foresight I will never possess.

Even if He asked me to surrender my girlhood dream fully into His care, I would give it over without question. He did; He asked me to surrender the girlhood dream. He asked me to let go of it all—the spacious kitchen, large brood of children and the long farmhouse table. He asked me to release it into His care; so I did. 

Whatever I gave over to Him, He held for safekeeping. My dream was not lost, it was held in His almighty hands. There it lives, and is completely protected. I could trust Him to give or to withhold according to His sovereign wisdom. 

He didn’t promise to fulfill the dream  later in life. He didn’t tell me anything except that He wanted me to release it all, and fully trust Him. I did so. 

It meant wholeheartedly leaning into the truth of Jeremiah 29:11, that says this: 

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

I had to lean hard upon His character as revealed in Scripture, knowing that His plan is never to harm me; it is always for my good. Though His ways felt cruel and senseless, I could not know as fully as He knows. I had to trust what the Scripture told me rather than what I felt. 

I felt wounded and confused—even betrayed. Scripture urged me to trust His heart and His plan, even in the dark. 

This theme would be a thread running throughout our entire journey. In large and small ways, every day I was learning to trust His plan, trust His word, and trust His heart when all I felt was disappointment, exhaustion and soul-pain. 

Trusting what I knew to be true, rather than trusting in my emotions or in favorable circumstances was a mindset that would carry me through many doctor and clinic visits, many trips to the ER, hospital rooms and eventually to Matthew’s graveside. 

I could trust Him because I knew exactly who led me, walked with me and carried me. It was The Holy One—Who Was, Who Is and Forever Shall Be, and that made all the difference. 

I didn’t change the brutal circumstances, it didn’t change my pain, but it gave it a deep and holy purpose. My pain was part of His divine plan. God walked every step of it with me; He held me up when I couldn’t go on, and carried me more than I care to know. I cannot know the full purpose of this heartbreak and sorrow this side of eternity. However, without the heartache, without the loss and without the surrender of everything I thought I wanted, I would never have known Him as I do. 

What began with a farmgirl in her orange sundress entrusting Him with her tenderly budding girlhood dream became a lifelong journey of learning to trust Him on a journey of heartache, struggle and loss where I learned to walk in intimate friendship with the Ancient of Days.

That, my friends, is worth the surrender of it all.