What Could Have Been

Geaux Garcia Photography

The other day I was driving back to Baton Rouge from Lake Charles, and thinking about what my number one piece of advice is to anyone... and it's that your life will never turn out like you think it will, and that it's okay. 

You can have big, beautiful, good dreams and plans for your life... sometimes they come to fruition and sometimes they don't. Something I have learned is that even if those good things don't come to pass, it doesn't mean the alternative is "bad." Your life may look different than you imagined; but it is okay because it will still be good, and God is still in the midst of it.

But I know that it doesn't always feel okay when your life goes through unexpected change. 

Lately I have been wrestling with a lot of mixed emotions upon graduating and a whirlwind of change. As I was praying and thinking about these things, I felt in my spirit words that I think bring relief to the need to have it all together.

And those words are that it's okay to mourn the what-could-have-been's. 

Maybe the relationship with the ideal guy or girl didn't work out yet again. Maybe you didn't get the dream job that you wanted. Maybe the plans were delayed or put on hold, and you feel stuck in a place or season indefinitely. Whatever was going to be fell through.

Whatever it is, it is okay to not feel okay. 

It is expected to mourn a loss, right?

Call me overdramatic, but there is a loss occurring here. This could be a loss of hope. It could be a loss of a dream or plan that has long been carved upon our hearts. This could be a loss of trust and certainty of what the future was going to look like. 

When our hearts are set on something, they are not easily turned away. Maybe it's our own fault, but I think we are natural dreamers. We build up a vision in our heads of what will be the most beautiful life. But as we all know, life does not always become exactly what we want; and in the turning away, our hearts might break a little bit.

There is an expectation to move on, to trust in God's plan, to know that it will work itself out in the end. But in the gap between what we feel and what we know to be true, confusion likes to settle in. From there, frustration is born because I think sometimes we feel as if we don't have the right to feel the way that we do. Especially if the alternative to our own plan is still bright and beautiful, there is a pressure to be okay, even excited while we are still trying to process the hurt and pain of disappointment.

The gap is where we take a moment to mourn the dreams and ideas of what was going to be.

I think it's important to let ourselves feel when our hearts break. We can stop trying to put the pieces back together with Scotch tape. We can stop holding our breath. We can let the tears fall and the sobs escape from the knot in our throat.

We can feel the disappointment and hurt and confusion and the feeling of being let down. 

And the beautiful thing is that we can feel all these things and still invite the Lord in to put us back together. He is not annoyed or tired of our sadness. Our emotions never catch Him by surprise, and He is the one person to fully comprehend all that we feel. There is a time to mourn and weep, but thank God He loves us enough to not let us stay in the same place for long.

Remember that we serve a God of grace, and that there is room to breathe here. He is right there with you, placing a hand on your back and walking you through this season. He is faithful to provide all that we need, and sometimes that includes time. Take time to mourn the loss of what could have been or what was going to be, but know that it's not forever. A time of dancing is coming.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11