If it’s a plant, it goes in the trash. If it is a pet, you bury it. If your dog dies, you don’t just leave him on the rug. You don’t put him in a box in the closet so you can go back and remember him later. If he is dead, you bury him.
I’m not talking about dreams of being a mom someday or plans to own a house. There is nothing wrong with dreams, plans, and memories. The problem was that I was holding onto plans that weren’t from God and dreams that God has asked me to give up. I had wounds that God continually and faithfully had began to heal, but I kept ripping open the scabs.
This all became very clear to me last week. I had a dream that was as clear of a message to me as if there had been writing on the wall or a text message straight from God. In my dream, I walked downstairs at my parents’ house and found our dog lying on his rug, dead. I screamed for my dad to come. He very calmly came, took the dog, left the house, and buried him. That’s all the dream was. Probably 30 seconds long.
I remember waking up and thinking… “Well, that was weird.” Then it hit me. It really was as if God spoke to me as I lay awake in the moments after the dream. Here’s what I realized. That dog I saw in the dream, he died over a year ago. That wasn’t just a dream. But as I saw in the dream, he had never been buried. I begged my dad to come take him away, because he WAS DEAD. I didn’t see where he was buried, but the deed was done. Once something is buried, you don’t go back and dig it up.
I was so convicted in that moment that I had dead things still taking up space in my life. Things that had been dead for a long time, but never were truly buried. Just as I called my dad to come take the dog away, I needed to call on my Heavenly Father to take these things away and bury them. For good.
The things of the past that God has asked me to get rid of have been buried now. I choose to walk in freedom from those chains.
Will my mind still try to walk down that road occasionally? Yes. I am still going to struggle sometimes. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have to make a conscious decision to let those things stay buried, to let God ultimately take them away. I have to take every thought captive. (2 Corinthians 2:5) When my mind wanders to the “what ifs” and the “whys,” I have to remind myself to not dig up the grave. God is in control. He has a plan that is better than those broken dreams and shattered plans. What’s dead is gone, but God promises new life and hope in its place.
No matter what you have been through, there is hope. There is freedom from the chains of your past. Let God set you free.
Hope is reaching from a rugged cross
Where a perfect love recaptured all the innocence that’s lost
And mercy’s calling from an empty grave
So lift your eyes to heaven
And hear your Savior say
Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
You’ll live to love another day
Yesterday’s a closing door
And you don’t live there anymore
So say goodbye to where you’ve been
And tell your heart to beat again