Dreaming...
The strangest thing about choosing to live in St. Louis and making decisions that will plant me in this place as my "home," is that, for the first time in my life I have found myself dreaming of the future. For the first time that I can remember since I was a child at least, I have started seeing my life in a more whole kind of way and imagining how I would like it to look.
When I was little, I knew two things that I wanted to do with my life: get married and be an author.
I knew these things without really having to think about it much, and even after vascilating/questioning/asking God in my 20s whether these things are dreams/goals from Him or not, they are the two things that have remained in the affirmative. I am still not sure if I want/can have children, still not sure if I will ever get a full time job or just use this time to work on my writing, still not sure if any man will ever get around to noticing me, if/when I will be able to afford my own place or have a full time job with benefits...
But today, I feel like God is giving me the freedom to dream again. As I do, I find that my 'visions' have taken on a more permanent, concrete form. In the past, if I ever tried, I could only imagine, at the most, next year! If I was lucky, maybe five years in the future. Now I imagine 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now!
The funny thing about dreaming like this, is I know that circumstances will change, my desires will change, but I feel more free to dream bigger, grandiose, lasting dreams with the willingness to let God step in at any moment.
The most interesting thing about these visionary dreams is that I am suddenly able to see concrete steps in front of me that I can attempt to take right now that might lead me in a particular direction. In the past, I could barely make plans for three months in advance and I always had trouble seeing far enough to know what kind of decisions I should make for the present. (For example, I floundered around in college trying to decide what I wanted to study and if I even wanted to graduate, but re-discovering my long held desire to be an author and imagining what being an author would require in the future, determined what I ultimately studied and gave me the motivation to finish my degree!)
All this to say, I have been dreaming big, yet relatively simply, with St. Louis as my backdrop. For now, this is what has been bubbling up in my mind/heart:
--a home of my own near Forest Park (or Tower Grove but I have grown to love FP so much since moving here)- not terribly expensive, I hope, just the lovely old character type homes that are here with the high ceilings. Decorated inside with a red kitchen and throughout the house, greens, ice/turquis blues, an orange accent wall or two somewhere depending on the house, furniture with clean lines and solid/textured sheer curtains on tall windows(I hardly like patterns anywhere unless it is texture or SIMPLE sparse geometric/organic design), paintings hung on the walls done by family and friends, and lots of potted flowers and plants everywhere!
Which brings me to outside- I would love a yard of some sort, even just a small row type house yard where I can garden like mad and fill it with beautiful plants, trees, restful nooks, bird baths and my favorite wind chime, which resides now in a storage unit in TUcson still...sigh..
And if I have a pet, I would like one Nigerian dwarf goat in some fun mottled color, maybe black and white and I would like to prance around with him in the yard and train him to walk on a leash so I can take a walk and bring glee to the neighborhood children.
I dream of being an author so that I can have a voice that stretches beyond my physical limitations and that God can use to bring vidid stories into the minds and hearts of children (and maybe adults too). I would like to be an author that can support herself on her writing, also, because I would like to set my own hours during the day and be free to do other things such as ministry.
In this visionary dreaming, I am eventually married (hopefully this part comes sooner than later!). I see myself being able to have the time to help my darling husband in whatever it is that he will need help. My dream has always been to be able to support myself with writing so that I could even go to work with my husband if it was allowed...I want to be able to spend lots of time with him! Not sure how that dream will be realized as there are few professions that allow such intrusions and probably fewer men who would like their wives tagging along...but for now, I will dream it.
For some reason, even though there were a few years of my life where I wanted ten kids, lately children do not appear in my dreams. I almost prefer to live out my life loving on the children in church instead of having my own or considering the readers of my children's books as my world of children. We shall see, though. Maybe God will change my mind, but He seems to be the one who changed it so drastically in the first place.
And my dream consists of staying at Memorial Pres for as long as possible, maybe forever and living in St. Louis until the day I die, only leaving it for speaking engagements as a guest author (haha) or fun trips to visit relatives and friends in the rest of the country, South Korea, France, SPain and SOuth Africa. I will throw in a train trip up the west coast and in Alaska too because I have always wanted to do that. I love trains. Maybe I will dream about owning a Railroad!!!
Okay, now I am going too far. And I don't really want a railroad. My own train would be nice though...
(heehee)
And over all of this, regardless of whether it happens or not and through the disappointed hopes and terrible heartaches that life, annoyingly enough, will certainly bring, I will serve the Lord. By His strength and for His glory, I will live my life with the deepest desire to love my precious Lord and to know His love even beyond the end of my days!
And this is just the result of my own limited understanding. I submit my dreams to the One who dreams even bigger...
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
When I was little, I knew two things that I wanted to do with my life: get married and be an author.
I knew these things without really having to think about it much, and even after vascilating/questioning/asking God in my 20s whether these things are dreams/goals from Him or not, they are the two things that have remained in the affirmative. I am still not sure if I want/can have children, still not sure if I will ever get a full time job or just use this time to work on my writing, still not sure if any man will ever get around to noticing me, if/when I will be able to afford my own place or have a full time job with benefits...
But today, I feel like God is giving me the freedom to dream again. As I do, I find that my 'visions' have taken on a more permanent, concrete form. In the past, if I ever tried, I could only imagine, at the most, next year! If I was lucky, maybe five years in the future. Now I imagine 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now!
The funny thing about dreaming like this, is I know that circumstances will change, my desires will change, but I feel more free to dream bigger, grandiose, lasting dreams with the willingness to let God step in at any moment.
The most interesting thing about these visionary dreams is that I am suddenly able to see concrete steps in front of me that I can attempt to take right now that might lead me in a particular direction. In the past, I could barely make plans for three months in advance and I always had trouble seeing far enough to know what kind of decisions I should make for the present. (For example, I floundered around in college trying to decide what I wanted to study and if I even wanted to graduate, but re-discovering my long held desire to be an author and imagining what being an author would require in the future, determined what I ultimately studied and gave me the motivation to finish my degree!)
All this to say, I have been dreaming big, yet relatively simply, with St. Louis as my backdrop. For now, this is what has been bubbling up in my mind/heart:
--a home of my own near Forest Park (or Tower Grove but I have grown to love FP so much since moving here)- not terribly expensive, I hope, just the lovely old character type homes that are here with the high ceilings. Decorated inside with a red kitchen and throughout the house, greens, ice/turquis blues, an orange accent wall or two somewhere depending on the house, furniture with clean lines and solid/textured sheer curtains on tall windows(I hardly like patterns anywhere unless it is texture or SIMPLE sparse geometric/organic design), paintings hung on the walls done by family and friends, and lots of potted flowers and plants everywhere!
Which brings me to outside- I would love a yard of some sort, even just a small row type house yard where I can garden like mad and fill it with beautiful plants, trees, restful nooks, bird baths and my favorite wind chime, which resides now in a storage unit in TUcson still...sigh..
And if I have a pet, I would like one Nigerian dwarf goat in some fun mottled color, maybe black and white and I would like to prance around with him in the yard and train him to walk on a leash so I can take a walk and bring glee to the neighborhood children.
I dream of being an author so that I can have a voice that stretches beyond my physical limitations and that God can use to bring vidid stories into the minds and hearts of children (and maybe adults too). I would like to be an author that can support herself on her writing, also, because I would like to set my own hours during the day and be free to do other things such as ministry.
In this visionary dreaming, I am eventually married (hopefully this part comes sooner than later!). I see myself being able to have the time to help my darling husband in whatever it is that he will need help. My dream has always been to be able to support myself with writing so that I could even go to work with my husband if it was allowed...I want to be able to spend lots of time with him! Not sure how that dream will be realized as there are few professions that allow such intrusions and probably fewer men who would like their wives tagging along...but for now, I will dream it.
For some reason, even though there were a few years of my life where I wanted ten kids, lately children do not appear in my dreams. I almost prefer to live out my life loving on the children in church instead of having my own or considering the readers of my children's books as my world of children. We shall see, though. Maybe God will change my mind, but He seems to be the one who changed it so drastically in the first place.
And my dream consists of staying at Memorial Pres for as long as possible, maybe forever and living in St. Louis until the day I die, only leaving it for speaking engagements as a guest author (haha) or fun trips to visit relatives and friends in the rest of the country, South Korea, France, SPain and SOuth Africa. I will throw in a train trip up the west coast and in Alaska too because I have always wanted to do that. I love trains. Maybe I will dream about owning a Railroad!!!
Okay, now I am going too far. And I don't really want a railroad. My own train would be nice though...
(heehee)
And over all of this, regardless of whether it happens or not and through the disappointed hopes and terrible heartaches that life, annoyingly enough, will certainly bring, I will serve the Lord. By His strength and for His glory, I will live my life with the deepest desire to love my precious Lord and to know His love even beyond the end of my days!
And this is just the result of my own limited understanding. I submit my dreams to the One who dreams even bigger...
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Comments