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At the End of Broken Dreams, an Open Door

By Anita Mathias

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About 20 years ago, in Williamsburg, Virginia, we used to sing this in church,  “At the end of broken dreams, an open door.”

I sung it because I liked the lyricism, but I had no interest in the open door at the end of broken dreams because then the dreams would have to be broken, right?

* * *

Well, well, well…

My daughters, choosing their own paths, ask me what my goals were when I was their age. I confess–with a wry smile–that my life barely resembles the dreams I had at 21.

Well, hello there, “failure.” Except the word has lost its sting. Sadness has given way to a shrug.

My life hasn’t worked out as I wanted…more dreaming than writing….though I perhaps have some good decades ahead of me.

And had a career worked out as I had wished, there would have been a lot more stress, busyness, pointless work, self-promotion, and exhaustion, and I would have reached middle age substantially more tired. And in worse health!

There are gains to all our losses—and some loss to all our gains. Tweet: There are gains to all our losses—and some loss to all our gains. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/12dfq+

The best thing we can do then is throw up our hands in acceptance and worship. Tweet: The best thing then that we can do is throw up our hands in acceptance and worship. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/p2l5A+ 

Failure. The beautiful thing about achieving failure is that we no longer fear it. Tweet: Failure. The beautiful thing about achieving failure is that we no longer fear it. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/Q6rf1+

Failure is a re-direction. We have been whisked into a different plot. Tweet: Failure is a re-direction. We have been whisked into a different plot. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/dg1ds+

* * *

The dreams of 20-30 years ago are not entirely “broken,” though they have morphed.

I wanted to write as beautifully as the writers I then idolised…Salman Rushdie, Vladimir Nabokov, Toni Morrison, Annie Dillard, Laurie Lee; to write with that beautiful texture, almost music. Yeah, I’d still like to.

However, that kind of writing comes out of immersion in literature, and the way life has happened…I haven’t read enough.

I took four years out of reading and writing to establish a business. At the end of that four years, I faced my broken dreams. My fingers had got stiff. My writing felt like the flightless cormorant of the Galapagos– bland, music-less, poetry-less compared to what it had been just four years ago. The instinct had gone dormant. That intricate lace-like writing which had once won me a National Endowment of the Arts award of $20,000– I couldn’t do it any more. I had lost the knack.

Broken dreams.

Once the business no longer needed my involvement for my husband is now running it, I wondered what I was going to do, how I was going to wriggle back to writing.

And I did perhaps the only thing I really know how to do… I prayed.

* * *

And, four months in limbo, I heard God suggest blogging…

That sounds like a grand way of putting it, but it’s the only accurate way!

My readers when I started were my Facebook friends…but slowly through the miracle of Google and the web and social sharing, they grew. About 10,000 people read my blogs each month, unique monthly visitors Google calls them.

And, ironically, my blogs may touch more people’s hearts, spirits and lives than the exquisite, artful writing I wanted to create. They may influence people for good on a daily basis. May help shape the way people think and perceive; help shape spirits. Blogging has been an unexpected adventure, and an unexpected gift!

* * *

I want to write beautifully, of course I do, and I will keep trying to write well until I die. Keep practising.

But what I am primarily aiming for in blogging is not a lace-maker’s artistry.

I think instead of a leaf, a kite, a raptor, catching the wings of the wind, flying high and higher as the wind lifts it.

I think of recording what God whispers to my heart.

* * *

I am trying to write–if it’s not too grand a word–“prophetically.” I try to hear what God is saying to me, and write it down. Record what I am struggling with…and the answers I have discovered. Answers which may perhaps help someone else up to the next step of the ladder.

And that’s more satisfying, healing, and enriching for my mind, heart, soul, and body than writing the beautiful literary books I wanted to.

Blogging…the open door at the end of broken dreams.

Will I ever write the books I wanted to? I believe so, though they will be different, more products of Spirit than of blood, sweat, toil and tears.

And that’s all to the good, isn’t it?

                                                                                                                                    * * *
Anyway, it’s become second nature now, when I face the rubble of broken dreams, things not turning out as I had expected, to ask, “So what’s the plot, Lord? Where’s the open door in this rubble? Show me the road I am to take.”

You come to a dead end, and there is hope in the deadness. For nothing in this world truly dies; dead seeds reappear as sheaves of wheat. Tweet: For nothing in this world truly dies; dead seeds reappear as sheaves of wheat. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/nV6G9+ Every death has some resurrection in it.

This world whispers of infinity. Pi has been computed to 10 trillion digits. 10 trillion of an infinite number of digits? Is that success or failure? It’s interwoven. There’s some failure in our bright successes, and our failures have ironic gains and golden lessons.

* * *

There are no dead ends. The door which seems closed whispers of windows.

And that window swings open….and you see the stars.

 

Tweetables

For nothing in this world truly dies; dead seeds reappear as sheaves of wheat.  From @AnitaMathias1  Tweet: For nothing in this world truly dies; dead seeds reappear as sheaves of wheat. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/nV6G9+

The best thing then that we can do is throw up our hands in acceptance and worship. From @AnitaMathias1 Tweet: The best thing then that we can do is throw up our hands in acceptance and worship. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/p2l5A+

The beautiful thing about achieving failure is that we no longer fear it. From @AnitaMathias1 Tweet: Failure. The beautiful thing about achieving failure is that we no longer fear it. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/Q6rf1+

Failure is a re-direction. We have been whisked into a different plot. From @AnitaMathias1 Tweet: Failure is a re-direction. We have been whisked into a different plot. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/dg1ds+

Every death has some resurrection in it. From  “At the end of broken dreams, an open door.” Tweet: Every death has some resurrection in it. From “At the end of broken dreams, an open door.” http://ctt.ec/rPodp+ @AnitaMathias1

 

 

More from my site

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  • In which I ponder False Starts & Dead Ends, & God says, “Come, Dance.”In which I ponder False Starts & Dead Ends, & God says, “Come, Dance.”
  • Keeping our Small Boat Afloat: Thoughts on Redemption, Giving up Regret, and my Thirty Year MarriageKeeping our Small Boat Afloat: Thoughts on Redemption, Giving up Regret, and my Thirty Year Marriage
  • For our griefs, failures, tears, Christ’s desire is “Let nothing, nothing be wasted”For our griefs, failures, tears, Christ’s desire is “Let nothing, nothing be wasted”
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Filed Under: In which I am amazed by the love of the Father, In which I bow my knee in praise and worship, Work Tagged With: blogging, broken dreams, failure, grain of wheat dying, literary writing, open doors, redemption, Resurrection, writing prophetically

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Comments

  1. Hunter says

    March 25, 2015 at 10:31 pm

    I’m where you were, Thanx. Maybe I won’t feel I’m in a bomb shelter anymore. I wrote an Easter poem or two.

    • Anita Mathias says

      March 27, 2015 at 5:12 pm

      That’s great. Thanks, Hunter.

  2. Andy says

    March 23, 2015 at 9:11 pm

    Anita, I actually wrote a poem after reading ‘Goodbye to Everest’, I was so inspired. I don’t consider myself a gifted poet or anything and I’m not trying to compete with you but, after reading today’s blog, I think it is still relevant. May I share it with you.

    SOME HOPE

    Some prayers that I lifted
    Some dreams that I dreamed
    Some hopes that I held to were good things it seemed
    Some places I reached for
    Ambition walked tall
    Climbed up to the clouds and in youth had it all

    I looked and I watched
    As others flew high
    Their lives like kites out of reach in the sky
    Could this one day be me
    My life turned around
    Or forever condemned to stay on the ground?

    Those hopes that once burned
    May be nothing but ash
    Those dreams that I journaled put out with the trash
    And those prayers that I sent up
    Long lost their aroma
    Scorched into smoke by the sun’s fierce corona

    My canonical prayers
    Were they far too simplistic?
    My dreams in their sweetness so unrealistic?
    And what of the future?
    I like to keep hoping
    My reason for living, my wellspring for coping

    Prayers compost the earth from which actions see light
    And dreams prime the crosshairs of the sharpshooter’s sight
    Faith that is tested produces endurance
    And nothing is wasted in heaven’s jurisprudence

    • Anita Mathias says

      March 23, 2015 at 9:40 pm

      Your poem is lovely. And good. Thank you for sharing it, Andy!
      “And nothing is wasted in heaven’s jurisprudence.” I truly believe that. Nothing in nature is wasted, it just re-appears as something else. Unharvested apples compost the soil. I hope it’s the same with us. It’s melancholy thinking of unfulfilled dreams, but of course, they shaped our lives, brought us adventures, and made us the people we now are.
      (Hopefully, my blog will rebound and become bouncy again 🙂

  3. John says

    March 23, 2015 at 2:34 pm

    Open doors? Oh, yes. Countless times. The truth of Is 32:21 has for me been accompanied by a backdrop of degradation and failure sometimes close to complete shipwreck. When the guttermost are redeemed to the uttermost, the heart is trained to listen for the voice behind; the valley of Achor (dejected) becomes Petah Tikvah – the door of hope.

    • Anita Mathias says

      March 23, 2015 at 9:49 pm

      John, there’s no Is. 32:21 at least in Bible Gateway. What verse were you thinking of? “I will make their Valley of Achor a door of hope?” I’ve come close to shipwreck emotionally, often and stretched over a long period, though not in my external circumstances. Well, so far 🙂

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Recent Posts

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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
So, after Paul the Apostle's lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us...
And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
All things in heaven and earth connected
By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
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