The Cost of Dreaming Big

There is an inherent risk in dreaming big, something no one ever talks about but is unavoidable and devastating, and that is the inevitable reality of disappointment. Now, I am old pro at dreaming big. I have constructed masterpieces whimsy in my mind that would shame Da Vinci. I have woven together grand and glorious schemes out of nothing more than a whisper of hope that make the Sistine Chapel look like a mere coloring book.

And it more than conjecture or what if’s. I can see myself there in the moment. I can feel the texture of the clothing I shall wear as it all comes to fruition. I can smell the air that crackles with the energy of realized potential, and if I am still enough, I can feel the weight of all the toils and heartaches endured to reach that moment roll off my back.

It is the fuel that keeps me going. It is why I do what I do and why I fight so hard to keep moving forward when everything around me tries to hold me back. I need to dream, like I need to breathe and even more than I need the nourishment of food for my dreams are far richer. In my mind it is not a question of if, but rather of when. For me, it has already happened and I am only waiting for that moment when you shall be able to enjoy the dream with me in this reality.

And then there are days like today.

Days when I realize I don’t have a play left. Facts, reality, the truth, whatever you wish to call it, are greater than my dreams and I have to admit that, at least for the moment, I have been defeated.

Days like this aren’t frequent. They are a strange and unfamiliar land, one that I have managed to dodge more times than any human has a right to – a fact I am grateful for, but it does not make it any less painful to be here. Maybe it is my lack of experience with this place that causes me to freeze, to set back and watch the sky fall bit by crumbling bit with nothing more than remorseful resignation.

Days like this make me doubt, not my faith, but my ability to trust God. And yes, there is a difference. For I have all the faith in the world that God is greater than my mind can comprehend. Questioning his power, his holiness, and his sovereignty never crosses my mind. I have faith that when I pray on your behalf that he will move mountains to care for you, to provide for you, and to demonstrate his love for you. Faith is not an issue. Faith is as real to me as gravity, an undeniable and powerful force not be ignored.

But trust? That is another matter.

Trust means that I am willing to believe no matter what the evidence or circumstance says that everything that is will be for my good. That is a harder thing to believe, particularly when the circumstances hurt. And they do hurt when you watch your dream evaporate.

This is where most Christian blog writers would give you some great spiritual insight. Sorry, but today, I have none. It just hurts. And my sadistic little brain keeps running through all the ways that life is unfair, making a tally of all the things that I have sacrificed and balancing against all that I think I have gained. I am involuntarily running down the list of people who have gained so much more and done so much less, and I am trying not to drown in self-pity or get puffed up with sanctimonious outrage that life isn’t fair – that God isn’t fair.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I know all the right Christian answers and I can quote all the appropriate verses for you. And I have lots of people in my life who are willing to quote them back at me, but you know what? When it hurts this bad, all of that is nothing more than salt in a bloody wound, and while I know that everyone means well, it feels like I am being told that my emotions in all this do not matter, like my disappointment and pain should just be swept under the rug and ignored.

I know my dream was unrealistic and that there were too many obstacles standing in the way to ever think that it might be done in this life. I get it, but do you think for one second I would be feeling this way if I did not have faith enough to dream in the first place? If I did not think for one second that my God was strong enough and great enough to accomplish all that I believed could happen? Of course, I did or I would not be facing disappointed now. The question was never faith. It’s not the question now.

The question is can I trust him? My mind started out screaming yes – decreeing it if we want to use the right church vernacular, but after the past few years that scream has become a whisper lost in the storm. For no matter how much I know what the right answer is, my heart is bleeding with the wounds that faith has dealt me, that daring to trust has cost me.

So I turn the pages, find the Psalm that reminds me that I am not alone. There was another who felt this way, another who dared to ask that dreadful question that only the truly brave can ask, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Because sometimes, you don't need answers, you just need to know that you are not alone. 

"Why Did You Deceive Me?" Or Leah's Romance

"What have you done to me? I was in service for Rachel! Why did you deceive me?" Genesis 29:25b

I have never been able to read those words without wondering if Leah could hear them. Was she listening on the other side of the tent curtain waiting to hear her fate? Did Jacob drag her by the arm and shove her in Laban's face as demanded to know the answers? Could she even breathe as her hopes of love and romance were cast aside in favor of her sister's beauty? Did the entire camp see Jacob's anger at having been saddled with her? Did she notice that her name was never spoken by her husband or her father? Only Rachel's?

If you don't know the story, here's a quick overview. Laban had two daughters, Leah and Rachel. Leah was the oldest. We don't know much about her only that she had "weak eyes" and that was not Jacob's choice for a bride. But Rachel, now she was something special. Jacob fell for her and he fell hard, so hard that he was willing to work seven years for Laban just for the right to have her as his bride. When the seven years had been fulfilled, Jacob demanded that Laban uphold his end of the bargain, but on the wedding night, Laban snuck Leah into Jacob's tent instead of Rachel. The next morning Jacob discovered what had been done and was furious, but Laban just used Jacob's despair as way to weasel seven more years of work out of Jacob in exchange for the bride he truly desired.

The new terms were quickly struck, and Leah was granted a full week with her new husband before he was wed to Rachel. I cannot even imagine what that week must have been like for her. Instead of the proud new groom delighting in his new wife, she got to spend it with an man who was anticipating a life with another woman. (And I think I have bad days.)

But that week was just the beginning. For as the Bible specifically records, Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. (Genesis 29:30).

We see Leah's misery in the names of her children, children that Bible says were given to her because God saw that she was unloved. Reuben means "The Lord has seen my affliction" or "Now my husband will love me", Simeon means "This is because the Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me this one also", Levi means "This time my husband will become attached to me for I have borne him three sons", and Judah means "This time I will praise the Lord." The hope in those words is heart breaking when you know that it will never be. Jacob will always love Rachel, and there is nothing that Leah can do to win his heart. Nothing she ever does will be good enough or amazing enough to be loved in the way that all women wish to be adored, and you can see the cycle of hope and shattered dreams breaking her until she becomes a footnote in her own story.

To this day, the romance of Jacob and Rachel is celebrated. Jacob's devotion and patience in his service for Rachel is lauded and Laban's trickery is condemned, but who remembers Leah as more than an obstacle to true love?

Some of the Rabbis attempted to restore some of Leah's honor, devising a tale in which she is heroine of faith. In their story Leah is frightened that she may end up married to Jacob's coarser older brother Esau, and she prays that she might be saved from such a fate. Her prayers are so powerful that she is given Jacob as a husband, instead. Later, out of concern for her sister she is said to have prayed that she not be allowed to give birth to another son lest her sister be displaced, and so the baby she was carrying became daughter, Dinah. It is a sweet tale, but stands at odds with the Biblical text.

For once, Leah's son Reuben found mandrakes, a plant believed to aid in conception. Rachel who was still barren at the time, begged her sister for them. Leah's response drips with bitterness, "Was it not enough for you to take away my husband, that you would also take my son's mandrakes?" (Genesis 30:15). Rachel uses the one ploy she has to get her way, she barters a night in their husband's bed in exchange for the mandrakes.

She informs Jacob of this with little love or hope of receiving any in return, "You are to sleep with me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes." (Genesis 30:16). Listen to her words, "I have hired you." Gone is the starry eyed girl, and her place is a woman who has made bitter peace with her situation. Children are her consolation, and that is all that Jacob can provide. The names of her next two sons are Issachar and Zebulun, "My reward" and "My gift".

It is hard to study Leah's story. It is not one of victory or triumph. It is about a woman who is stuck in the most untenable of positions anyone could imagine. God does not give her the love she desires, he does not change her circumstance, or intervene in some miraculous way. He leaves there as she struggles to cope with the harsh realities of her life.  

But just because it is a hard story, it does not mean that is should be avoided nor should Leah be forgotten for she has much to teach us. She began her journey full of optimism and hope. She had dreams of being loved, and she prayed that God would grant her a request so simple that many of us believe it a fundamental human right. For what kind of God would deny us love? Surely, it is the just reward for any of us who believe in him, who serve him, who do as we have been commanded, and honor those who declared we should honor? Would it not be anything short of cruelty to deny us the one thing that human heart demands to experience happiness? Leah teaches us that our suppositions about God are not always true, and she reminds that his intents often exceed our happiness and fulfillment. Sometimes God's plans include our suffering and the sacrifice of our dreams.

Oh, it hurts. I know how much it hurts as time and time again he has asked that I watch as others receive the very things that I have asked him to grant me. I have witnessed blessing poured out on those who do not honor him as I do, and good gifts given to some who have never sacrificed on his behalf. And in that moment, I am confronted with a choice. Do I indulge my petty nature or do I try to see the grander purposes that God may have in mind for me? For my children? For this world? For eternity? Can I play a part or will I be consigned to the sidelines, a footnote in my own story, because I allowed my sense of entitlement to steal what joy I have been given?

See, Leah was not totally forgotten. Each time she was given a son, the Bible declares it because God heard her, he remembered her, and heeded her. He knew what she was suffering and he gave her good gifts in the midst of her pain, even if he did not obliterate the cause of that pain. Leah finally got it. It took her years, maybe even decades, but she finally understood that she had a choice to be keep hoping for what she was never destined to have and live in the agony of disappointed hope or to rejoice over what she had been given. She declares as much in the names she gave to her children.

And I wonder what matters more to her now, that even her memory is clouded by the name of her sister or that her children would become the kings and priests of the nation, that her sons would be the father's of a people through which God would bless the whole world, and that the salvation of all humanity can be traced back to time when she was nothing more than a pawn? As a mother, I can only imagine that she would celebrate the triumphs of her children even at the expense of her own dreams and the fleeting happiness she thought needed. Leah's romance was not with Jacob, it was with a God who destined her to participate in a legacy greater than the love of any one man could have ever been.