Post 7 - Deconstructing After Too Many Busted Dreams?

 Post 7

I want to talk about how burnout or busted dreams might be part of the reason a person steps back from attending church or deconstructing their faith. 

I'm halfway through the book on Deconstruction, but I don't recall if broken dreams was one of the reasons given or not. So I will make my own presumption. 

Busted Dreams 

I had worked fulltime until my mid-thirties before leaving the paid workforce to raise my children. I had held responsible jobs I was proud of. I say this because once leaving to be an at-home mom, I felt dismissed a lot by the world around me including church members. I wanted to use my skills for more than just bringing the cookies to events (as one pastor had suggested.) 

I once signed up to take a turn cutting the church lawn and the pastor almost had a fit. "I'd never trust my wife with a lawn mower," he said. 

To this day, I remain the main lawn mower of our nearly one acre property and I do a darn good job! Yes, pastor, some women like to cut grass.

My large front lawn after a cut. 

I missed the working world. I missed the comraderie, the brain-stimulating work, someone calling me by name daily, the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself.  So, I often looked for signficance in the church since I seemed to have so much time on my hands and my heart was in ministry. 

My husband wanted to grow his career, so taking job transfers with promotions and pay increases appealed to him. Staying home as the main caretaker of our children made sense for providing a stable home front since he travelled a lot. But my longings for more never ceased. I dabbled in a variety of endeavours over time and, in 2005, I came upon Christian-based life coaching as a new career option. 

Life Coaching was new to Canada, but my American ties led me to it. The entire idea of life coaching from a Christian perspective lit a fire within. I seemed to snap out of a depression that had been mounting. I looked forward to it. (The training was from Dr. Katie Brazelton who had significant roles at Saddleback Church, California. She had worked closely with Pastor Rick Warren). 

Katie encouraged us to reach out to churches and other public spaces and offer our coaching skills. She had a strong mission-focused mindset and didn’t want us to charge much for our services. But every door I knocked on was quickly slammed shut. No one seemed willing to trust an outsider to come in and implement a program in their church. But who am I supposed to be angry at for this? Katie? The trainers? The churches? God? It left me questioning where to direct my frustration and disappointment.

Ever felt locked out of your dreams?

My self-esteem was plummeting. So I applied for paid jobs which weren't in my wheelhouse. Those I took didn't turn out well. 

Being an older woman by then trying to rejoin the workforce was humiliating.

I knew the God of the Universe could bring me the perfect paid role that would suit me and the kids, but he never did! At least, not the kind of role I envisioned--the kind many other women my age enjoyed. 

I didn't understand why God didn't answer this particular prayer except to say that all these years later suffering with ME/CFS I see working again might have been a strain on me physically and I was spared. 

I eventually settled into hosting conversational English circles and helped showcase homes for a realtor, who happened to be the husband of one of the women from the group.

Over the years, my heart sank so many times as I struggled to discover my bigger purpose beyond being a mother. My husband seemed to be flourishing in his career, but my own dreams didn’t materialize in the ways I had hoped. Feeling defeated, I eventually took on the role of janitor at his business office so I could earn a bit of pay for myself. I often found myself crying and praying while cleaning, wondering if this was all there was to my life—such a low level job!

Had I sacrificed what I really wanted out of life when I chose motherhood over the paid workforce? Or was I still in God's perfect will?

My first life coaching photo.

I spent a lot of time going on dog walks. 

Here's the crux: Was I really meant for more, or was I simply failing to see the value in the everyday tasks that filled my life? Is God's design for most of us to actually more ordinary than we realize? Could it be that the big dreams some motivational speakers and pastors inspire us with are misleading? 

When Dreams Meet Disappontment

Having experienced my own busted dreams and unhelpful comments from church members and pastors, I see another reason people like myself have choosen to step away from the church. They've been let down. 

I recently met a local woman who is gung-ho about proposing her church start a home care ministry for seniors that would operate as a business. I told her her heart was in the right place, but I also told her a few issues I forsaw. I don't see it working out and I see her becoming very disappointed when her church rejects the idea. But there is something to be said for bravely trying.

When excitement fades, disillusionment often follows, especially for those who entered church life with high hopes. After all, we live in a world that constantly tells us, 'You can be anything you want to be.' For some, deconstructing their faith naturally follows when those expectations aren't met.

Now that I’m older and wiser, I see that life is full of seasons. We often begin with hopeful expectations, believing we are called to do great things for God, only to later realize that many of those dreams were ideas we held in our own minds. Many women face setbacks and unfulfilled dreams, and when those moments come, we grieve.

Like many others, I’ve learned that the path we envision for ourselves isn’t always the one that comes to pass, and sometimes the plans we thought were divine invitations turn out to be detours leading us in unexpected and sometimes deflated directions.