The Funeral I Had for the Life I Imagined

I held a funeral, and I know you’re probably wondering who died.  But nobody. This funeral was to lay to rest the life I imagined for myself.  The life I couldn’t let go of because I struggled to believe that what God had for me was really for me.

But you see, grieving the loss of someone isn’t the only way grief can cling to you.  You can grieve your expectations, your wants and desires.  You can grieve something that never actually happened. You can grieve the marriage you thought you would have by now, the family you pictured, the career you expected, the version of yourself you thought you would become, or simply the way you believed life was supposed to unfold.

And it’s okay to grieve.  Grief is a normal part of death.  But what we must not do is let our grief drive our lives. Feel the disappointment of what didn’t happen. But don’t grieve the life you imagined so much that it stops you from living the life God has for you.

And yes, sometimes it’s easier said than done. Sometimes you grieve, and instead of moving forward, you pick up the very thing you laid to rest because your grief made you miss it. Grief can make what you buried look desirable again simply because it was familiar, wanted, or once deeply hoped for.

So what do we do? I believe there’s someone who shows us how we can lay to rest the life we imagined so that we can walk in the life God has for us.

This person was betrothed to be married, and what seemed like betrayal to him was actually God moving in ways neither of them could have imagined.

His name was Joseph. In Matthew 1:18–25, we see Joseph find out that his fiancée, Mary, is pregnant—and they hadn’t even tried to conceive.

Joseph initially saw the situation through the lens of the life he thought he was about to have. What looked like the destruction of that future was actually God doing something neither Mary nor Joseph could have planned for themselves.

So what do we do? Well like Joseph, we consider.  We don’t move too hastily. Often times we consider after we’ve made the decision to live based on our imagination. And I don’t know about you but what I’ve learned is that in my hasty decision making I don’t make the best decisions. So when our grief makes us miss the very thing we laid to rest we need to stop and consider.  Consider why we put it to rest in the first place.  Consider how you felt when the life you imagined actually brought pain and not comfort. Consider whether you miss what you buried—or whether you simply miss what you thought it could have been. And what we learn from Joseph is that when we stop and consider we open ourselves up to hear something different than what we’re telling ourselves.

Verse 20 says an angel of the Lord came to Joseph and told him what was really taking place. Joseph thought he understood what was happening, but God revealed that there was more to the story. The life Joseph imagined with Mary was much smaller than what God had planned for them.

What is God trying to show you? Have you ever considered that you’re not ready to see what God is trying to show you because you haven’t put to rest your imagined life?

Joseph didn’t fully understand what God was doing while holding onto his own interpretation of what was happening. He had to make room for God to tell him a different story.

Not only does Joseph show us that we have to reconsider somethings and be open to hear from God, I believe Joseph also shows us that we have to wait.

I’m no stranger to laying to rest my imagined life. I’ve done it too many times to count because I’ve allowed my grief to convince me to pick back up what I tried to put to rest. I’ve been afraid to wait because to me waiting once meant that God forgot about me. But now I know that waiting doesn’t mean forgotten.  Waiting means preparation.

Joseph had received the revelation, but receiving the revelation didn’t mean he immediately saw the fullness of what God was doing. He still had to walk forward in obedience, trusting what God had revealed to him.

When we lay to rest our imagined life we make room to wait on what God has.  Waiting requires you to believe that what God has for you is worth not going back for what you buried.

So when we have a funeral and lay to rest our imagined life, we do so by considering, hearing, and waiting.

* Considering — stopping long enough to reconsider the story our grief is telling us.

* Hearing — making room to hear what God may be saying that’s different from what we’ve been telling ourselves.

* Waiting — trusting that waiting doesn’t mean forgotten; sometimes waiting means preparation.