When I was a little girl, I remember taking walks in the woods around my parents land and dream about the university I would some day attend, the kind of man I would marry, the momma I would become, the home I would live in...I was young and I was a DREAMER!
Indeed, I enrolled in the university my heart longed to attend, OBU. I married the man of my dreams, I became, and still am becoming, the momma I want to be for my kids, and am blessed abundantly with a beautiful home nestled between the most amazing sunrises and sunsets. Yet, somewhere in the middle of it all, I stopped dreaming.
I let life consume my everyday thoughts. I let other things become more important than myself and even my marriage at one point. Life wasn't horrible, well maybe a few places here and there, but for the most part, it was ok. I learned I'm not one to live with the "just ok" mentality. I lost that "dreamer" in me I once was.
Until...
One day a friend of mine introduced me to something called a Dream Board! She asked me what I dreamed about, and honestly, I could not answer her question. Little did she know the dreamer I once was, and she suggested I start dreaming of things I'd like to do. Oh my good gracious! The hair on my neck stood up, I got the goosies on my arms and something snapped in me.
Visions/Dreams written down - January 2013
I couldn't grab the magazines fast enough and crop pictures of places I'd like to visit, debt I wanted to get rid of, and mission trips I desired to serve on! I sat in the family room with my husband and close friend and together we wrote down our dreams...one of mine was and I quote, "To have a literacy center in a foreign country! Why not all 7 continents? Well, it may not work out so well in Antarctica." I laughed about it, but there was a seriousness to it. I'll never forget that night!
Within the first year of what I referred to now as my "Vision Board", my husband and I paid off $20,000+ in unnecessary debt, we sunbathed on the beaches of Florida for 3 years straight, and journeyed to Guatemala for our first mission trip.
Guatemala - July 2014
So many great things came from that trip. New friends. Another trip to Guatemala. A fair trade business established. And now another mission trip in the books. This time across the world! I was given an opportunity to work with teachers and students in an English center half-way across the world, Kyrgyzstan! All I can do is look up at the heavens and know, "GOD!" He is in complete control of it all.
Dubai - 2015
One dream I've never written down nor placed a picture of on my vision board was the chance to visit the beautiful city of Dubai. I'd watched documentaries of it, yet never thought in a million years I would ever see it with my own eyes. That mission trip made a pitstop to the immaculate city where I'd actually walk the sandy beaches of Dubai! The desire had always been in my heart, but I never envisioned it for myself.
Yes, I took this picture. ;)
To the dreamers I say this, Keep Dreaming! Do not stop pursuing the passions of your soul! Even when you fail or things don't turn out the way you imagined or planned, you CAN NOT let the enemy defeat you in this. For it is the very things, your failures and shortcomings, that are the stepping stones, the foundations of your dreams.
I will be used!
God-willing, I will not only touch the lives of hundreds or thousands, but of millions, dare I say billions.
I'm a dreamer, why not!
Still learning. Still growing.