Living Our Dreams

I still remember the answer I gave at my kindergarten graduation to the question, what do you want to be when you grow up? “A nurse and a mommy.” At the ripe age of 30, I guess I can officially say I am living my dream…pinch, more gratitude please & emphasis on the quote, “I remember when I prayed for the things I have now!” Are we so quick to continue striving for the next best thing, that we easily forget the dreams God has already fulfilled for us right before our eyes? 

Tangent aside, today I’m writing about other dreams…those fantasy, perhaps unrealistic, pie in the sky, childhood dreams. The one where I was the country star singer & Broadway musical lead on the big stage. Remember that dream? The one where you saved the world, flew to the stars, won the Olympian goal medal, or took the oath of office. Recently, my kids helped me remember my own dream as they dove into the world of imagination, “Mom, look 1, 2, 3…I’m blasting off high into outer space, me flying!” claims my 2 year old, as my newly 5 year old shouts, “Dominic, we are building the tallest tower ever in the world!” “Mom, we’re packing our bags to go out on the grand adventure! “I need the garage open so I can use Daddy’s tools to invent my new invention!” Suddenly, I was the little girl giving the concert in my wooded fort. Fleeting moment, pause, and I soon found myself waiting for the pasta water to boil. Then God gave me a beautiful gift. As I put on my favorite broadway soundtrack from the Sound of Music and started singing along, I found my two little sons pulling up chairs and fixating their eyes on me. “Mommy, you look just like Maria!” “You have a beautiful voice!” What? Those precious words my heart longed to hear, spoken from the mouth of babes.

And that is how God works. That is what He does through our motherhood and through our vocations. He takes our biggest, wildest dreams and fulfills them into something bigger, something more miraculous, and more wonderful than we could have imagined. I thought my wildest dream was hearing those words shouted by a million voices on the largest stage, not from my living room floor with my kitchen spatula microphone in hand. But look at what God did. He showed me how those two little exploding hearts loved me more than a million strangers ever could, and to them, I was the worlds greatest performer. By some miracle, my heart accepted that gift of my unforeseen audience, and was filled with a beautiful peace. 

He knows us, He loves us, He knows our dreams before we dream them, and He longs to fulfill the deepest desires of our hearts. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,” Jeremiah 1:5, says the Lord. He is always there, patiently waiting to show us how we are living our dreams as the star of the show of our little, yet miraculously significant life.

Choose to look for the gift God is giving you today. Open your eyes to His mysterious, loving, greater than life ways, and choose to see how He's fullfilling your dreams.  I have dreamed of you, says the Lord, “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” Jeremiah 3:13. Surrender your deepest desire, your craziest childhood dream to our loving God, and I promise, He will not disappoint.

In Joy, Alex