Hold Fast to Dreams...

Hold fast to dreams, for when dream die,
Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go,
Life is a barren field, frozen with snow.
                               - Langston Hughes

I am a dreamer. Always have been. An unapologetic dreamer. In seventh grade Home and Careers, we had the assignment to write where we saw ourselves as adults. Most students eked out a few sentences about having a big truck or working in a beauty salon. I wrote an entire page about being a writer living on the coast of Maine, what type of house I would live in, and even what my house would look like at Christmas. 

I am a dreamer. It's almost a sickness. It is definitely contagious. I often, inadvertently, get other people invested in my dream. And when this dream fails to come to fruition, I am not the only one who is heartbroken. 

I am a dreamer. An invested dreamer. I can see my aspirations so clearly in my mind, it is almost as though they transcend imagination and become memory. Perhaps this is why, when one of them is no longer an option, it is so, so painful. Like a death of some sort. 

I am a dreamer. And I never know when to let go. How do you know when it's time to retire a dream? It's easy if some outside circumstance(s) intervenes and closes the door for you. But how do you know when you have to take a deep breath and close the door yourself? I never seem to know. And I am always scared to do that. Closing the door has such an air of finality attached to it, and resurrecting it seems like an impossibility. 

I am a dreamer. I have held a dream close to me for years and years, and it continues to elude me. Is it foolish to continue to cling to it? It's not completely unrealistic or unattainable. It is a classic case of circumstances calling the shots and me having no control over them. 

I am a dreamer. I know that God directs my path and holds me close to Him. Proverbs 3:5&6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on thine own understanding; in all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." I don't want to lean on my own understanding. I am just praying and believing that God will show me clearly what I should do and when - or if - I should surrender this dream.