I am a passionate dreamer.
The past few weeks and months I have been feeling a familiar call to begin dreaming again. I've been traveling to St. Louis quite a bit recently, including several trips to see Marida in the hospital. (You can read about her story here.) And each time I find myself navigating around St. Louis, I feel something inside me wake up. I'm sure I must have been made for the city, and my poor heart has just been drowning in southeast Missouri all of my life :) Somehow this led to a leisurely walk around Target two days ago with Miss Rachel Beise, dreaming of how we'd decorate our apartment, who we'd have over for dinner, and what we would name our cat. You know, if we lived in the city, of course.
I haven't always been too fond of dreaming. In fact, I once would have thought such behavior was silly, dangerous even.
Last summer I traveled with the Beises to Chattanooga, visiting family for the fourth of July. I remember walking over the bridge arm-in-arm with Rachel, talking about how much we'd love to live there. I have not since moved to Tennessee, but something funny changed in me that day. I felt the Lord whisper to my guarded heart that it was safe to dream. You see, it truly can be a very scary thing. I find I am often too afraid to even go there, scared I will be let down if they don't become truth in my life. And on occasion, I fear that my heart will become so ravished by some certain dream that I will be compelled to act, and will find that I don't actually have what it takes to carry out my dreams. The act dreaming is very brave, and going for a dream takes great courage.
So in faith, I began dreaming... Almost a year later, I have such a sweet collection of dreams for my life. Each of them are dear to me and yet I hold each one loosely because I know the God who put those desires in my heart has bigger and better dreams for me than my small, young mind could ever imagine or piece together. Even if none of the dreams I have now become a reality in my lifetime, I know as long as I am dreaming with the Lord my life will be sweet and full and I will be happy as ever.
What do you dream of when you let your heart and mind run wild?
Such a sweet post, Ash. I used to always dream of living in Colorado :) I'd imagine myself sipping coffee at a mountain side cafe with a stack of books in front of me. Not surprisingly, in all my dreams I had dreadlocks lol. Having dreads again is something that I'd love to do hehe!
ReplyDeleteI love dreaming! I have this post card which says "Don't ever let anything stand in the way of your dreams" and I have lived by that quote. One of my dreams have recently come true when I got the internship at the Finnish radio station and through that I got to start blogging on their web sites! One of my greatest dreams(this far)was to go for exchange to USA and there I was and I made friends with such amazing people! My next dream is to become a mother, that is the biggest dream I will ever have and I have faith in God that He will make my dream come true some day. Please Ashley, never stop dreaming because all the dreams will come true if you believe in them and yourself and if you give them a little push your own. :) Miss you!
ReplyDeleteColorado with a stack of books sounds fantastic, Les! And are you saying you used to have dreads? I can't imagine that at all!
ReplyDeleteSweet Sonja, I loved your post so much! I'm so proud of you and all that you're doing now! I want to start following your blog too. And I am definitely glad your dream of the exchange program came true ;) Miss you too!
And you know I dream of being a mom too! That is my biggest dream for my life, to be a wife and a mother. I'll write more about that on another day though I'm sure :)
Oh... just realized your blog is in Finnish! hehe! Well, please let me know if you ever write anything in English?!
ReplyDeleteHaha yes, unfortunately I have to blog in Finnish because Finns are the main target group there! You can follow the pictures on the blog though. lol.
ReplyDeleteHopefully both of us will get the dream of motherhood come true. :)