I've been thinking a lot about dreams lately. I'm a planner, and I love to dream. Dallas and I's favorite dates involve sitting somewhere alone talking about the future and dreaming about where we'll live, what we'll do and adventures we'll take. One of our all time biggest dreams was to live on a piece of land and raise our kids out and away with room to roam and explore. For them to have places to dig and climb and fish and roam. Simple. Kind of like how the two of us grew up. Me in Illinois and him in Oklahoma.
We finally took the plunge toward that dream nearly two years ago. We found the perfect location, a builder and we sold our house. It felt surreal and so exciting to finally get where we were going and raise our kids in our vision for their childhood. It all seemed like it was falling into place, but in reality WE were making it happen. I can honestly say that I don't even remember praying all too much about the decision. It was something we really wanted, and we went for it.
It ended poorly. The very day we were set to close on the house Dallas's company announced it's closure in our location, and he lost his job. We were rerouted to Houston just weeks later, and now we live in a giant suburb the size of Philadelphia outside of the 4th largest city in the Country. On a postage stamp lot where I can wave to my neighbor from my kitchen window while we both wash dishes. There is no living out and away here without a 2 hour commute to his office. He's on the road as it is for over an hour each way, morning and night. We are as far out as it gets in terms of realistic options. And by in large, we love it. We love where we live, the friends we've made, our school, our neighbors, his job, this city. WINTER! It's been a pretty incredible experience for our family, and we have been so thankful for the opportunity and the blessing of being where God has us.
I promise this is not a pity post. Just that every once in a while I still have a dream in my heart that I feel will never really be realized. And now I'm processing what to do with that. To adjust my idea of the way I thought we would raise our kids and be okay with a different plan for all of us. In reality I know that I know that God's dreams and plans for our family are so much better than my own. And I want to be in His plan for our lives, and not my own. But I'm in this weird and hard place for me where I feel like I can't dream anymore. I'm scared to dream. It seems pointless. And it's such a big part of who I am, and it's been so strange that for the past 11 months I have not dared to dream. Not about our future, about a career for me, about where we may end up. I just stopped seeing the point, and would rather not experience the fall out of a dream not being realized, I guess. And this makes me sad.
Dallas and I talked about it a few weeks ago and decided that maybe the answer is to have dreams that are eternal, and not of this world. Dreams that will change the lives of others. Kingdom dreams. Dreams that God puts in our hearts that we can't escape or fall away from. Most of my past dreams are selfish dreams, involving only my little family. That seems reasonable considering pretty much anyone can just uproot and move wherever they want and make it happen in this day and age. But I don't want to do that. I want to be in His Will and fulfill His Dreams for our lives. God's presence and intervention was undeniably evident in our move here. We asked and He answered. To have stayed where we were would have been disobedience. So if I start redirecting my dreams, maybe there will be a shift in my heart as well. I truly want His dreams to be my dreams. And I certainly don't want to try make anything happen outside of His will. Why would I even want something that He doesn't want for me? Or isn't in His plan. But can I just say..what an amazing God we serve. That even though we make mistakes and try to do things without Him, that He still rescues us and protects us, and corrects our path. I'm so thankful for that.
So what's a dreamer to do? I've decided that on sad days I will be thankful for the dreams that I never even knew that I had, but that have now been realized. Like riding bikes to school every day with my kids, our neighborhood swim team, having a million kids in the streets to play with in the evening, hour trips to the beach, being in some of the best schools in the Country, being close to the best doctors for Rhett when we needed them, having a pool to spend fun family time, being here on our own to adventure and explore with our little family. Having healthy kids. We've grown leaps and bounds through this experience, and we've grown closer together. My prayer for us is that our old dreams and ideas of what our life would look like and
how we would raise our kids would truly die. Die so that my heart
doesn't feel like we missed it. And that God gives us new dreams. Dreams that make our hearts excited, even if they are scary or seemingly impossible. His dreams.
And it's okay. It's okay when a dream dies. It may be unexpected or alarming, but maybe it's just the biggest blessing in disguise. Maybe God has to take you to a whole new place to give you some perspective. And that's a good thing.
