Due to the business of life and the holiday season I have not been able to compose a new post in quite sometime.

But it's a New Year and we have started the long quiet of another winter season. Winter is usually a time of reflection for me so I anticipate more time devoted to writing both in this blog and my main writing project.

Thank you again to all of you who are reading my posts and providing comments and feedback.

Currently my mind is filled with many thoughts and in this state it has always been hard for me to distill my thoughts into something coherent but I shall do my best.

As I consider what I've written about (loss and failure and shattered dreams etc), I slightly struggle in this moment for how to continue.

Here goes nothing...

When I was in my worst state, my despair and hopelessness was so acute I could barely escape it and nothing (philosophies, ideas, books, motivational topics) had any power to move me from that place. I certainly could not will myself out...

Growing up, faith was incredibly important to me. It defined me certainly; it defined my thoughts, beliefs and world view. Allow me to clarify what I mean when I say faith in case you have a different meaning of faith in mind. I am talking about faith on a spiritual level. I believed there was a God who revealed himself to the world he had created. I believed he sent his son, Jesus to die on a cross for all of us sinners so that we could be reconciled to him... no longer a sinner but a son or daughter of God.

There is more to my faith and beliefs than this, however that is essentially what I believed in its most basic form.

I never re-canted these beliefs even in the worst moments. I still believed these basic things to be true.

But in the darkest places I've experienced over the years, I consider my beliefs and faith to have been tested and tried in severe ways.

I have wrestled with many questions. For example, if there is a God, why does he allow such pain and suffering in this world and seemingly do nothing? Why does he refuse to act when my needs are most severe? Why when I feel such pain does he not act and do something? For if he is the God spoken of in the Bible, he is a God of limitless resources, but if so then why does he allow such horrors to take place upon the earth?

One might begin to wonder, "If God loved me, he would not have let this happen to me". One might begin to wonder, "If there is a God, and if he is loving, and chooses to do nothing in the face of the individual and the group of individuals who experience the horrors of this world; then one must assume he is not truly a loving God".

I would assume that most people who believe what the Bible says about the God of all the universe, struggle with these and other questions and thoughts. I certainly did and sometimes still do.

Of course there are answers to these questions and thoughts. However when one goes through acute pain and suffering in one's life, even some of the greatest answers to these thoughts and questions will be carried away like leaves on the wind.

For me, I still believed in this God even in during my darkest times, but I no longer felt like I could trust him with my life. I could not feel safe with a God who would not act and aid me when my needs were greatest.

I spent years being passively and sometimes aggressively angry with him; within myself I truly just wanted him to keep his distance for he was no longer safe.

The God I thought I knew was vastly different than I thought.

Things began to turn around for me when I really took time to consider Jesus. I began to consider him in a completely different light and that was the crossroads for me.

I will close with this thought. Whether we used to believe in God and have walked away from acting in that belief or you have never believed in much of anything spiritual, if we consider the person of Jesus and what we know about him and his life can change all of our thoughts and beliefs in the most meaningful ways. Even the name "Jesus Christ" invokes thoughts of discomfort and uneasiness or peace and joy in our minds in a way no other human name does.

That, quite simply, must mean something profound in my estimation.

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Shattering of Dreams to a Point Beyond Breaking

I would label myself as a dreamer without hesitation. I dreamed of travel. I dreamed of making a mark on this world (a positive one). I dreamed of leaving a legacy. I dreamed of love. I dreamed of experiencing beauty (of course there are too many forms of beauty for me to list at this time).

I believe the freedom to dream is greater in our youth than it is as we get older. Unless perhaps we gain more than we lose when we risk as we pursue our dreams. Sometimes the risk is great, sometimes it is small, but there is always a risk when we pursue our dreams.

I always valued the pursuit of dreams. I considered it a great adventure. After all we only live once and I wanted to live my life to the fullest. I didn't want to miss out because I was afraid to risk. Therefore I risked much, and I risked often. 

Thus as a youth I risked much in order to live to the fullest and embrace fully the adventure of life and achieve all I could achieve. I pursued my dreams ferociously. I did fear outcomes but I refused to make a decision because I was afraid; well not all of the time but I like to think I did most of the time. There was a period in my life where I did not lose what I risked. I remember those times fondly. It was like everything I put my hands to succeeded. This led me to believe that people who were not 'succeeding' must not be 'applying themselves enough' or were perhaps 'reaping the consequences of lethargy and apathy' or perhaps just didn't care to succeed. I now believe this thinking was wrong, at least in part.

During those times, I think I believed I was taking large risks, but I suppose I didn't know how much there was to lose. I do remember thinking I had counted the costs of the risks I took in pursuit of dreams (though naivety can hinder one's ability to count costs). I think I believed the the idea of 'when a door shuts a window opens somewhere'. So what does it matter if you don't succeed, just look for the next thing? 

I do not think I was rash... at least not all of the time. 

I was afraid of heartbreak - yes I can admit a great fear of heartbreak - and thus I thought to take actions that I believed would insulate me from heartbreak. Well who doesn't? Was I afraid of rejection, of not knowing what words to say, of being laughed at? Sure... all of the above. My attempts to insulate myself were useless as I experienced great heartbreak and I experienced it more than once just as many of us have. That was one my first truly shattered dreams: the dream of experiencing the beauty of living out a love story (oh yes I am aware of the cheesy factor). I say 'shattered' on purpose. I say shattered because some dreams, once shattered are no longer recoverable. Terrible of me to say? Well let's continue for a bit before you write me off and move on. 

I had another dream. It was to have a career that I loved. One that did NOT involve a cubicle or days spent wasting away while staring at a computer screen. The dream was to experience the beauty and adventure of travel and other cultures, peoples and places. This is why I pursued my childhood dream of becoming a pilot. In my mind that fit my career dream perfectly. 

I counted my costs in pursuit of this dream. I researched how to become a pilot. Asthma on my medical records kept me out of the military. I researched universities where I could major in Aviation and become a pilot. 

I pursued that dream ferociously. I firmly believed I would become a pilot, all I had to do was work hard. I knew I would go deep into debt because the flight program was very expensive but that was ok because I was in pursuit of my dreams and people go into debt for their education all the time.

I can remember many things about studying to be a pilot. I remember the first time I took off and watched as the ground fell away. I remember the first time I landed by myself. I remember the first time I flew solo. I remember watching various birds soaring around my plane when I would fly. I remember the feeling of freedom, especially when flying at night. 

Conversely, I can remember when I realized the aviation industry was forever changed and would not recover... at least not quickly. I can remember when the amount of debt I had incurred was just too much to continue. I can remember when wisdom dictated that I walk away from the dream. I can remember going into the flight director's office to tell him I was leaving the flight program (in other words, to tell him I was quitting). That experience will never sit right with me. I was not used to quitting. I didn't give up on things I pursued.

Oh I have no doubt that it was the right thing to do, but that does little to ease the bitterness of it. I am still in the chains of that school debt and thus so is my family by association. I have nothing to show but the piece of paper I left with. 

There are those who will shake there heads at what I just said and wave their hands back and forth in disagreement. They will state having a college degree will open up doors for you that wouldn't be opened without. Certainly that is true, but I will say that I could have had a college degree for a MUCH smaller sum of money, and until very recently I am not sure my college degree has helped my career. I have done nothing in aviation since. Two and a half years of hard work... gone. I will cherish some of those memories, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I have second guessed my decision to pursue that dream countless times. 

These are two of the three shattered dreams I was planning on sharing. I will save the third for another time. For now I wish to leave you with some of my final thoughts on shattered dreams being unrecoverable. 

I can point you to many who have had dreams shatter. There can be redemption. There can be renewal and healing, but once a dream is truly shattered, I do not believe it can be recovered. I believe this is because the deepest dreams within us are a part of us, and when shattered we lose the part of us that is attached to that dream. And the pain of that is indescribable to anyone who has not experienced it.

In my next post I will discuss the third shattered dream. These three shattered dreams were some of the key variables that culminated in the breaking...well the shattering of me.

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