When the Gift Gives Way to a Dream

Since she was a girl, she knew there was something different about her. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she knew it was there.

In the oddest way, she began to catch herself enjoying opportunities to talk in front of her classmates. You wouldn't know it, but she liked the chance to read a poem in front of the fourth grade or have a small speaking part in a class play. It felt fun and easy.

 

 

This painfully shy girl couldn't understand how the pull toward public speaking and her shyness could co-exist, but they did. Somehow.

Eventually, she had to give a speech in front of her entire ninth grade class, all the while thinking that she really, really liked it. It wasn't the fact that people were looking at her (that made her insides shrivel), it was the passing on of a message that she enjoyed. Seeing the faces, making the eye contact, and relaying the message. That's the part she loved.

But it was too strange, so she never said it out loud to anyone. Because, who likes public speaking, especially in the ninth grade? Only the wacky ones, she thought.

So she kept her love of speaking and message sharing to herself. Public speaking made most people throw up, shake, pass out, or turn beet-red. So she knew she wasn't normal.

What she didn't know back then was that God had given her a gift.

And she was simply learning to use it.

As she reached adulthood, went to college, got married, and became a mother, she grabbed onto her gift and walked forward with courage and the spark of a dream. She wondered if this love of message sharing would be part of her future. And how.

For a few years, it seemed like it would be. Speaking engagements were regular, and she began to hope. Wow, really? Now?

Right when she was in the middle of having babies, the dream was becoming a reality. Things were falling into place. And then... nothing. Truly nothing for three years. She received no calls, no emails, no recommendations. It was over.

The dream had completely flatlined. It no longer had brainwaves or a heartbeat.

It felt like a death. The death of a dream.

She began to feel as if she'd done something wrong. Or maybe said something wrong, and the word got out. She'd been too eager, or not eager enough. There must have been something.

But as she began to let go and hold her dreams with open hands instead of the tightest of death-grips, God helped her realize that she could have more than one dream. And this was the time for the next dream to walk out onto the stage. And in order for the next dream to unfold, the first had to rest.

It was like a commercial break. One that was necessary and part of her story. The first dream hadn't truly died, it was just in a God-induced coma. It's brainwaves were still present; it's heart still beating. But the time to open its eyes and be fully present in daily life wasn't then. Oh, the relief. And oh, the patience it took to let it lie and just be. Sort of like when your arms are itching to hold your newborn baby who has just fallen asleep with the most angelic expression. You really need to get some work done, or get a shower, but you can hardly keep your hands off the poor babe. You ache to be with her. To be close and feel a part of her.

Just like a baby, dreams need rest with no one trying to hold them.

The next dream unfolded during those three years. It was hard and beautiful. Beautiful and hard. She continued to wonder if she should try to entice the first dream back to life. But she knew better. The next dream was taking up more than enough of her physical and mental energy. She just had to wait. And wait. And... wait.

Then one day, the first dream woke up.  It came out of that three-year coma with a jolt, almost as if it were never sleeping. It was time. The dream she'd just spent the last three years living didn't have to die for the first dream to come back to life. They could co-exist.

Just like public speaking and shyness.

Her dream has new life.  And leave it to God to add a new element she didn't think would be a possibility while her children were young. But the Dream Waker knew better.

The dream has gotten out of bed, and has begun walking.

And best of all, she began to understand that God didn't just sit back and dream about His people.

He got up and pursued them.