Dreams.

When dreams feel like a curse, are they still from heaven?

The valley is filled with dead dreams, and those of us who once had the courage to hold them are but the walking wounded. Skeletons with skin.

Hearts of stone, can they bleed again? How do you resurrect a rock?

So many prophesy of the days the Lord will pour out His Spirit and we will dream! Psalm 126 says, “when the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed.”

But what of us retired dreamers? The ones who had so many, believed when there was no hope, built with broken tools. Nurtured it, cared for it, covered it, loved it, cherished it; but it looks dead.

To get to such a place is the hearts greatest devastation. For to even have the courage to dream a dream in this place, takes so much heart.

So what happens when every dream that you loved and knew by name, is now another bone in Ezekiel’s valley?

Does the Lord bring us all here?

Why must every season of life be met with Mount Moriah? Why must Isaac always be bound and given over to death?

What does the Lord want that I haven’t given Him ten times over?

This life feels so marred by death. Both by sin and by altar.

I think of our precious *Gabriel. An older man who lives in our metro. This architect turned sojourner has told us of his dreams to open a pastry shop in Paris. Where an architect of buildings can meet the architecture of a pastry. A place people can come and receive rest and warmth, covering and community, food with dignity.

Does this dream not deserve to be birthed?

Why is *Gabriel’s dream contained on Line 10 of our metro stop, while so many other dreams run wild and free like the bulls of Bashan? My heart breaks. It is broken and yet, I look into his eyes and cannot help but see how much beauty lies in the fact that he’s still got dreams.

Even for the self-professed non-dreamers, you will find something. Some hope they have written on a weathered piece of paper that gets reborn every time it gets planted in another pocket. You see, we cannot help but dream. Because like our Father, we cannot help but create.

So here I am, bringing to Christ’s altar my alabaster jar of dreams. The broken ones, the dead ones, the wounded ones and the ones that were never fully born. Each of them has a name and a moment of inception. But I know the Lord is asking me for all of them.

So I have broken my jar and bound the promises inside, just as my father Abraham. And one-by-one, I put them on the altar at Moriah…gently weeping over each one. Grieving through my obedience.

Many will try to paint over this moment with some lukewarm prophecy about how He will resurrect them.

But I must not take that posture. Not here. This place is too Holy.

My heart must groan out on this hill and say, “and even if He doesn’t, He is still good.”

So today, there is no ram in the thicket. No Angel of the Lord calling out my name. Just a little girl weeping over what never was.

But even though the walk back down the mountain is long and it feels as if my hands are empty, I find the strength to sing one last song. Borrowing the words of a sister long gone, Jane Marczewski, affectionately known as “Nightbirde” —

“But I still got some magic in me,

I can’t feel it but I still believe,

the music stopped, but I still sing,

pretty beat up, but I still got dreams.”

And as I make my descent without a resurrected Isaac and no perfectly-timed reprieve of a miracle birthed, the Lord has taught me that not all jars of alabaster contain perfume. Some of them are filled with battered hearts and unfulfilled dreams.

But Jesus Christ is such a King, that He finds even this sacrifice a beautiful gift. You see, He doesn’t want gold or jewels, money or more crowns, He wants our dreams; even the dead ones.

And it’s okay to grieve while we sing, because it’s true — we are pretty beat up, but we still got dreams.

*Name changed to cover him and to honor his dignity.