Dreaming and Celebrating

I've talked about it here before, but I've had a hard time doing it lately. Dreaming. I think the thing that can make dreaming scary is the fact that we are sharing in a vulnerable way, our deepest thoughts. 

I think dreaming is so healthy for us. I'm not going to site any studies or look up research. It's not that time right now. But I am going to say, I know that studies have been conducted and papers have been written. And I know that dreaming is good for you. I just know. 

I find that when I dream, I feel better. {Except when I realize how far off my dreams are}. In general, I feel more alive, more motivated, more powerful. And now I'm working on channeling those feeling that come from those dreams into goals. Things that can be measured, moved, and celebrated.

This past year or so I have had so many friends get engaged and married. This last weekend alone, produced two more announcements. And I am incredibly excited for both couples. They are going to get oh so celebrated by me. But you know what? I need to celebrate me too. I need to celebrate my victories, which allows me to celebrate them better and with my whole heart. 

Let's celebrate the little things ya'll. when we celebrate, we are throwing a thankful party. We are saying this is good and i have to share it. We are slowing down time and enriching our perspective. We are saying thank you to God for life.

Let's celebrate waking up and the sun shining. 

Let's celebrate the best cup of coffee or the aroma of freshly brewed tea. 

Let's celebrate color, sights and sounds. 

Let's celebrate getting a project finished and imperfect progress on the next one. 

Let's celebrate goals being met and new ones being set. 

Let's celebrate relationships and growing up. 

Let's celebrate. 

And then let's dream what more we can celebrate.

Captive Audiences + Grace

Tonight I sat and told a story and tried to calm the fears.  My words tumbled out and I'm not even completely sure what I said.  I know the message I wanted to send.  And I know how passionate I got.  More passionate, more aggressive, more agitated than any of them had probably ever seen me be before.

  

It all started with a simple question about Ebola.  One of pure innocence and wanting to understand.  I tried to sit on my hands and clamp my mouth, but I'm afraid I inundated her and the rest of my rather captive audience.

 

"You probably don't know, but I've been to Liberia.  I worked in a medical clinic there."  I hastened to add "Just for a week... in high school. But I worked with..." My voice trailed off.  "Well I know some of the people who have died from Ebola."  My voice caught and I also realized my matter of fact tone.  

{I know "some" is the overstatement of the year! I know a few, a handful of the many people who have died.  I know the people and the souls who lived in those bodies...Please give me grace}  

When you're dealing with disease, poverty, corruption, and a place half a world away sometimes you have to be matter of fact.  When you're dealing with all these things you can't change, sometimes you just have to stick to your guns that you will not be emotionally effected by these truths.  Because sometimes the more you hear something the more it becomes real.  And your active imagination can see these things, you can touch them, and you can smell them.

 

That's the thing about Liberia, it has a smell.  You can smell the red earth, the moisture in the air, the air itself.  Sometimes the perfume mixes in the smoky charcoal texture.  There are other things that have a smell - so does disease, poverty, corruption.

 

What I appreciated about these women around me was their questions and their general acceptance of the things that I was sharing.  Not that I was sharing the correct information or that I didn't have some of my facts jumbled.  It was rather that they listened and accepted me.  They accepted that this was something that as important to me and that I really did check the news everyday for stories.  To me it gave me life to see these faces looking at me, eager to hear words, and open arms to my heart.

 

I didn't talk about my friends or the culture.  I didn't talk about specifics.  Just the news, and some of a recent missionary update.  And when I talked about it at the end I wanted it to be all about hope.  All about the things that were beautiful coming out of this horrendous situation.  All of the things where God was being glorified.

Castle in the Clouds

You know the song?  I assume you know the song, because just a few years ago the movie adaptation was the talk of the town.  The song, it is beautiful, emotion filled, poetry music.  It is lovely.

 

In college I took a music class to make me a required well rounded student, and it was good for me.  My class was musical theatre.  The music behind the theatrical production.  The inner workings of the art produced.

 

As a watcher of musicals, plays and such, I enjoyed the class.  I picked Les Miserables as the show topic for my big huge project.  I listened to the music over and over.  I knew the story, but now I knew, in a deeper way, the emotions.

 

I love the story of Les Miserables.  I love the redemption and the exhibit of true character.  I love what seems to be the black and white of evil, and yet there are the questions that seem so...grey.  They can only be answered in the grey.  And at the same time there are the messages that are so counter cultural.  Lavish forgiveness. Denouncement of fortune for the sake of statement of beliefs and follow through.  A questioning of judgement.  Is is ok to lie and steal for "good reasons?"

 

And in the middle of it all there is a time to dream.  There is an escape.  The past for some people becomes wiped clean.  A castle in the clouds.

 

I go to my own castle in the clouds.  I escape from the world.  And sometimes we need to create those castles.  The world is just too much right now.  People are struggling and others are wielding cruelty in barbaric ways.  I can do nothing, so I go to the castle.  And the king of the castle, he listens and comforts and then asks me how I will help those outside the castle.  And I shake my head and ask What tangible thing I could do?

I don't have an answer.  

Punching Fear in the Face

Those chessy inspirational sayings, I find them annoying. 

I mean look at one. 

The first time it might be awesome and pleasing to the eye. 

The second time it’s cute, a good reminder. 

The third time its lame. 

And well after that I think I get more out of them because it’s so annoying. 

 

Source

 

But today I appreciate them.  Most of them are true my station in life today, yesterday, and the day before that. 

And here is why…

Opportunities, the ones I’ve been waiting for, praying for, hoping would become. 

They became.  All at once.

The other day, amidst the decisions, I almost took one by saying “I am so fearful of the unknowns of that particular one.  I want to take it, just to punch fear in the face.”  But I’m really glad that I didn’t, you know punch fear in the face, because I think fear can punch back pretty hard.  And let’s be honest, I don’t have a very good right hook.

My graduation cap said Adventure is out there.  And I believe that adventure is out there, because it’s in making the moments, monumental.  It’s in making the insignificant, important.  It’s not in making everything a big deal, but in realizing that certain things are of great importance.  Experiences shape.

I need to be reminded that life is an adventure, and I should live it as a great one.  And I need to be reminded that fears should not confine my thinking, but rather expand it.  When I am fearful, it is often because I created the boundaries and dictated the rules.  In an adventure, there are no rules. 

Rather than punching fear, I want to be freed of its companionship.  Fear does not belong as a part of my adventure.

Brave

Via

I love reading the thoughts of another blogger named Hayley.  She is a woman who is a different place in life as a mom to almost 4 boys.  Yikes! I am inspired by and thinking because of her article called “Brave.”  I like to dream, but I don’t know if I am brave.  In a lot of ways I really am not.  I don’t like to fail.  And wow, do I not like others to know my failings.  I am learning.  I am learning how to open up.  And yes I fail.  Miserably.  I am exceptional at failure.  And it is teaching me that I need to let others know that I know that they will fail and that I will give grace and that I love them.  I need to learn how to communicate those things better.

 

A little deep for a Monday, but I feel so inspired by a conversation this morning and recent thoughts. 

Are you brave?

When I grow up...

It’s going to be a school year where I’ll ask myself ‘what do I want to be when I grow up?’  And I’m going to ask it a lot.  {I just have this feeling…}

It will probably come up on here as a topic of conversation.  If I’m being truthful it will be me, writing, sifting through thoughts.  Not a conversation, but a monologue.  It’s going to look like blurting out the mess of ideas that go through my head.   It’s going to be hard.  And I think that putting it into writing is going to be a challenge.  I think it will be a challenge to share my ideas in a way that makes sense to others.  I think it will be a challenge to realize the amount of limitations that I put on myself. And it will be a challenge to not feel like I’m failing…all the time.

This year will be the last year of college for me.  At least for while.  I need a break from school.  I love learning, but I’m not keen on the testing idea.  I’m excited to be done with the institution of learning {at least for now} and take some lessons from life. { Life, you are a rough teacher and having you on top of assigned papers and reading has been brutal at times.}   I’m excited to learn in a more unconventional way.

I didn’t pick a major that led into a defined profession.  I wanted options to choose and discover more about myself.  I’m glad I did.  Now those options are still there.  Yes, a few have been thrown out, {but more came to the surface, which a whole different story} but still there are many options that remain.  This leaving options open method has led me to outside questions.

 

I don’t like not knowing the answer to the questions, ‘So what’s next for you?’

‘What do you plan to do when you graduate?’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘And what are you planning to do with that degree?’

Because I don’t know. I want to know, and if I did know, I would probably tell you.  But, I don’t know.  And no matter how many times I say it, it doesn’t morph into an answer.  Not an answer that is satisfactory to me. 

Here’s what I do know.

When I grow up…

 I want to be kind and love well.  I want to help others and live passionately.  I want to be a friend that listens and helps picks up the pieces of this messy life.  I want to give grace and lots of hugs.  I want to be an encourager and a hospitable hostess to everyone.  I want to be a safe place and a person who breaks down limitations by being bold and courageous.  And as much as the humanness in me strives for perfection, I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be the best me that God has created.

What do you want to be when you grow up? 
{I’m exploring options, and I need some more ideas!}

Love Does {the Book}

I love people.  And I love God.  And if you like either of those things even a little bit, then you should read this book.  I’m being serious.  I heard about it exactly two weeks ago and I read my brother’s copy {thanks bud} and want to read it again.  Just for kicks. 

I love people a lot.  And I love seeing how God changes hearts and then transforms lives.  I love hearing other people’s stories {hence the blog world}.  And I like to read.

Those things are wrapped up altogether in Love Does.  This book is an easy read, and it uses the word “whimsy” which is just perfect.  The chapters are short, so don’t worry if life is busy I promise you can fit a read in.  It’s a mix of stories that make you laugh out loud in public places and others that make you think deeply.  And there’s a range of topics {yes, even BB guns make the cut} that all come back to God’s love and loving people.  Because love does.

I have to say it has put a radical spin on my imagination.  I’m dreaming again; big dreams.  I’m dreaming impossible{s} and I am so excited to see how God changes those and if he makes them realities! 

What are some big impossible{s} that you are daring to dream?  Are you willing to share them?  And willing to hope that they might become realities?

These are my own personal opinions that I shared with all of you because I liked this book and I think it’s worth a read.  No endorsement.

Dreaming Big

This quarter {yes, my school is on the quarter system or fast track as I like to call it} I am taking classes that all involve international business, or the international world. I now have friends all over the world or at least people that I could get in contact with all over the world. I think globally on a daily basis. It no longer blows my mind the amount of people that are in the world. I should rephrase that in to that I am not surprised by the numbers. Then again with perspective, think of all the people that you don’t know. How many people around the world don’t know the major world leaders, or celebrities or…Jesus?
We talk about religion in the United States…a lot. We usually debate it more than we reasonably talk about it. It is safe to say that almost every person in the United States has heard the name Jesus. It could be through church, the street corner preacher, or even {sad to say} swearing. People have heard and they have a choice to respond. But other places in the world, it’s not so certain. There are people that have never heard ‘Jesus’ uttered. They don’t have the choice to decide how they will respond, because they have never heard the message.
I’m thinking about the world, thinking about unreached people groups, and how small I am in the grand scheme of things. How helpless I am to make direct effects. It is my dream that people would have the ability to choose to follow Jesus or not. But they need to be given that ability to choose. God is bigger than my little dream. He can change hearts without the person hearing the name Jesus. And that blows my mind more than the amount of people that live in the world. I am going to be praying that people would be given that choice, and that they would be reached, no matter how that comes about.
I don’t usually use this blog as a soap box, and I don’t want it to be a place to speak at someone. But I do want to use it as a place to share what I am thinking about. These are things that I am thinking about. I go to a university where people I meet on a regular basis don’t believe the same or agree with me. So, feel free to comment. Feel free to share. Be respectful.
What is your dream? {There are no limits; it can be big or simple to accomplish.}