Hopes, Dreams, & Jesus

Of course, Isa didn’t believe in love or the perfection of a man in any form. They were caricatures of someone who didn’t exist. They disappointed, became lame, or dull, or worse yet… addled. 

And so if she were to pursue something or someone so foolish – a figment of her imagination perhaps, she might as well dream impossible, reluctantly, and pursue it wholeheartedly.  

She would meet Cary Grant. But the conundrum was, he was gone from this world. Long ago in a far away time when films were black and white and Hollywood the golden dream.  

Hopes

Now things didn’t exist like that. There was a harsh reality to life. A cuthroatedness that, if it existed then, wasn’t seen with the naked eye. It was subtle and clung to words like debonair and chivalrous. When in all reality, it was a form of the male ego.  

You’d think Isa was a cynic and you’d be right.  

Yet some part of her held out hope of meeting Cary Grant.  

Life was not easy or fair. But Isa lived in reality, a place most of the people she met no longer cared to tarry. You see, reality was messy… with bills and illness and false identities revealed. 

Yet part of her was full of conjecture. 

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Dreams

Indeed. She aspired to meet a man of such character that it would break her heart in his honesty. In his perusal of life and living it to the fullest, of smelling the flowers and squeezing the lemons, and shoes off in the grass while he held her hand.  

He’d grasp her to him and twirl her high around with him, the wind buffeting them both in blatant jealousy. He was someone you knew wholly and admired, not fearing a darkness within because only light dwelt there.  

Yes, so this was her soul’s pursuit outside of the mundaneness of her job and cloistered existence.  

Isa is going to be disappointed her whole life. Her expectations resting in two tree trunks that grew into the hard earth and formed her idols. Legs pegged to the ground and immovable.  

Jesus

Cary Grant doesn’t exist nor should he. The Lord is the only perfect man and man cannot take His place in a heart, on the cross, or as our Redeemer.  

Though our flesh is weak, we are strong in Christ. We can have fullness of life and joy in Him with or without Cary Grant. 

Maybe it’s easier to be skeptical than to have hope.  

Hope requires a wider view.  

Skepticism accepts the narrow and disdains the lofty.  

We each have stared from our windows into the darkness of night. Alone with our thoughts and our surroundings.  

Yet, the gaze extended beyond the rooftops and through the tall trees reaches for something higher.  

Life Is A Journey

If the only memory we possess was of that moment, it is by far and always enough.  

For in our finiteness, we find peace that the journey is not over as life is swallowed up by death. 

And if we alone have viewed this window, this farscape or the small space of our own four walls with cat or dog by our side, we have been made better still at its reflection and softness of hope without the bitterness of the skeptic. 

Lights shimmer from distant houses. Families each in their spaces and at repose. Are they content, loved, feeling cherished? 

A house does not a home make. 

While in a room below, dreams are had of a different kind, another room could only hold desperation and loss of self.  

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Only Jesus

God give us contentment in the new and the still small breathes of a life made joyous by the chill of a cold sheet or a warm fire or even the shared breath with a breeze by an open window on a chilly fall midnight. 

And what of our Isa’s pursuit? It is folly or hope akimbo? 

Perhaps a little of both, for God only knows the pursuits of man and where they lead. In His infinite wisdom, may He give us what is truly for our good ends and faithful joy. We lift each day toward Him and fling our expectations at His feet, for His worthiness is unmatched and unsullied by the wiles of man.   

Join the Conversation

Have you ever had a wild dream like Isa’s? Something so out of the ordinary to wish for that it couldn’t possibly come true? What did you do with that dream? And how do you think God fits in with your dream? 

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