Following Dreams

by Grace

They say that you should follow dreams,
Abandon all else, them to seek,
And yet to me it always seems
That somehow this idea is weak.
What dreams to follow?  For ought we know
A dream may leave when just we start
To follow it to death, and lo,
Another dream is in our heart.

A girl may dream of horses first
When she is young, and life begins
Determination fuels her thirst
To ride, to race – compete and win.
As girlhood’s years unfold with grace,
Her equine fancies fade away.
A dream of love is in their place,
And seeking it, she spends her days.

A young boy’s dream may change each day,
Inventor, actor, cowboy, cop,
And each in turn dictates his play.
Till one dream rises to the top.
And as he grows into a man
His dreams now fill with law and courtrooms,
Soon these things form all his plans,
Ambitious lawyer he becomes.

But if the girl, with all her trying,
Finds she is not to be a wife?
And sorrowfully her dream is dying,
What now the purpose of her life?
And if the boy, with years of study,
Finds too late it’s not for him?
His dream grows tired, and faint, and muddy,
And his future dark and dim.

But what if they, during their youth,
Had sought another path for life,
Had sought it from the Source of Truth,
And followed that through joy and strife?
Instead of forging dreams their own
Had found them in the Greater Will
Which dreamed for them a greater one,
A dream from His Great Plan distilled?

The problem is, which dream to follow.
First or last?  Or something more,
A greatness that turns our dreams sallow
In light of awe that makes it soar.
The answer may not be so far,
Perhaps, when our perspective is,
The right dreams are
Not ours, but His.

P.S.  My lovely friend BushMaid wrote a beautiful poem with the same message on her blog!