Do You Dare to Dream?

I've always been a dreamer. In part, it comes from the way I was raised. My parents never told me that my wild childhood dreams were unattainable. For years, I dreamed of being an astronaut. When I wanted to be Sally Ride for Halloween, my mom made me the coolest NASA flight suit. Well, NASA is obviously not where I ended up, but my parents never once dissuaded me from that dream. My change of direction from science to music was my choice and driven by my passions. Later on, my redirection from music to politics was also my own decision. I have to think most parents, not bearing the name Kennedy or Bush, would not encourage their child to pursue politics, but mine always supported me.

On some level, I believe being a dreamer was wired into me. I can't remember a time when I didn't long to travel to foreign lands. I loved the colorful postcards my grandparents sent me from their travels. CS Lewis' Narnia and Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time trilogy (not yet a quintet in my day) captivated my imagination. I lived in the flatlands of Illinois but my heart longed to see snow-capped mountains and vast cerulean seas. When I had the opportunity to travel with my choir to Eastern Europe only months after the fall of the Iron Curtain, my heart soared. I felt I was made for adventure.

But life happens. Everyone experiences things that make certain dreams seem unattainable. This realization hit me hard in my early thirties. My husband was in seminary, we had two young children, and I was struggling with autoimmune disease. At one point, I remember being challenged during a prayer meeting at our college to give my dreams to God. I'm going to be honest. That was HARD. My first thought was But these are MY dreams. I didn't want anyone else in control of what I felt was my last shred of hope. Truthfully, I didn't trust him with my dreams. What if I gave them to God, but he didn't give them back the way I wanted them? My heart wasn't completely in it, but I prayed. I told God he could have my dreams, but I'm sure I added some conditions. Deep down, I knew I would have to come to a place where I could let go and trust him.

Over time, I began to see that as I gradually loosened my grip on my dreams, I could trust God with these prized possessions. You see, he already knew my dreams, but in many cases he had much better ways for those dreams to be realized than I did. Some things that I let go have simply fallen away as they've seemed less and less important. Other things, like my dreams of global travel have been realized to an extent I never thought possible. My husband and I now work with a missions organization that sends us to love people in places that had never entered my dreams. And the organization we work with is one I'd never even heard of a year ago. Seriously, what we get to do is so much better than I'd imagined, but if I'd been the one trying to put the pieces in place, it never would have happened.

Fifteen years ago, my small dreams seemed like all I had left. How wrong I was! God had so much more, but I had to let go and trust him with the details. I'm not saying everything always works out the way we think it should. Scripture is clear that we will have struggles. We all suffer disappointments and loss. But when we meet him in those places of struggle, he brings healing, transformation and restoration. The things we think are so important look different from his perspective.

He knows our hearts. He knows our hopes and dreams. And he is GOOD. When we take the step, even just a tiny one, to trust him with our treasured pieces of self, we give him the opportunity to show his faithfulness -- to realize our dreams in ways we couldn't imagine. He's not sitting around waiting for an opportunity to smite you. To the contrary, he loves to give good gifts to his children. Are you ready to receive?

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!  Matthew 7:9-11 (NIV)