Unrealized Dreams

The summer Olympics always make me nostalgic. I swam all through high school, at my highpoint making the Olympic trials in 2000; so when the Olympics role around I watch and when I see former swimmer-friends compete, I have a twinge of desire of wanting to be there. I wanted to be an Olympian, I wanted to compete at the top, yet as shoulder problems started to plague me and I began to seek the Lord in what he wanted for me, I felt that swimming was something I needed to give up.
The fact that it was a real, and in my mind, tangible dream made it harder to give up. There's half of me that understands God leading me to open my hands on something I was grasping too tightly, but then there's the part that says "Couldn't I have learned to use it for Christ?" The answer: I must trust God.
I think surrendered, unrealized dreams have to be one of the biggest sore spots when it comes to trusting God. I wonder if that's why Abram, when promised to be made a "great nation" (Genesis 12:2) when he was 75, feeling forgotten by God went on to have Ishmael 11 years later (Genesis 16:16). He was experiencing an unrealized dream.
So how do we handle it? If I was holding onto the glory of swimming over the glory of God then there could have been nothing better for God to do then to take swimming away from me, painful as it may seem. Even if I wasn't, even if my attitude was right before the Lord it takes faith, trust, and belief to let go of my plans, my schedules, my scheming and to truly say "It's yours - every part, all you ask, all you give, is yours to do with as you wish."
May God grow that heart in each of us as we encounter unrealized, shattered, castaway dreams.