Photo Credit: cyanocorax (Creative Commons)
What do you do when your dream changes? When it just withers and dies unexpectedly upon the vine of life?
For twenty years, I ‘knew’ I was called to full time pastoral ministry. I went to school to gain the training to support this dream. I got an internship in my senior year as a first step. I was even offered a full time position at the end of the internship.
Something felt wrong, so I rejected the offer. So glad I did. I found out later the youth pastor I would be replacing had caused great wounding to his young followers. I didn’t have the maturity to lead a church through this terrible event. But I assumed another job would come along.
It never did. Twenty years later, I find myself no closer to full-time ministry. For many years, I struggled mightily with this disconnect between my vocation and my calling. As i have started writing over the past few months, something unexpected has happened.
The dream of full time church ministry has melted away. Like ice on the sidewalk on a hot Phoenix day, it is just gone. I have no passion for the idea of full-time pastoral ministry anymore. Don’t get me wrong.
I still want to be engaged in serving in my church. I love my church, and I am committed to being involved in the ministry to our community and the world abroad. Just no longing to work full time as a pastor at a church.
I am finding the same passion that was filled by the idea of pastoring now presently filled by writing. By loving others and serving them with my words. So there is no lack of dreams. The dream is just changed.
I feel both an emptiness and a peace as I come to grips with this new reality. There is life birthing in the remnants of this newly dead dream.
Have you ever found a long-time dream suddenly dead in your heart?
sometimes HOPE 