Living the Dream

It is dark at my house. My guardian dog has returned to the porch, apparently satisfied that the coyotes are gone for the night. I have a little fire going in the wood stove for my children. The progression of sleep people has begun. In a little while I will hear the first rooster crow and I will see the first glow in the East, but I have been up for a few hours. I have been tending to a sick kitten. This got me up and while I was up, I decided to catch up a little house work and get some praying done.

I started thinking about goals and dreams. In response to an inconvenient situation involving children and pets, a friend jokingly exclaimed, "Yup! Livin' the dream." That got me thinking. I know this friend IS living her dream or pretty close to it even if there are temporary annoyances. I began thinking about how close I have gotten to my own dreams in a half decade.

I have never forgotten my dreams. The tender ministrations of my own mother and some really special relationships with other adults during my formative years put a desire to help others, especially children, into my heart. I have heard that a dream is an idea without work and a goal is an idea with some elbow grease applied to it.

I started working toward the goals of helping children when I was a child myself. I decided I would defend the helpless ones that I encountered. From N. A., the only black child in my first grade class at Woodstock Elementary School to T., the little waif across the road when I was 18 who wanted only to learn to ride a horse, the Lord was always putting people in my life who needed what I had to share. I thought it was pretty special!

Thirty years later, I have learned that although God is still doing that, it is much more of a two way street than I realized in my youth. As part of the dream and the vision the Lord has blessed me with there has been considerably more receiving than I anticipated. Time after time, as I have walked (sometimes shakily) by faith, the Lord has placed people in my path who for a moment or a year or a lifetime, shared the dream to help those who are powerless to help themselves. I love living the dream, but I love more, the crazy quilt of warm friendships that God has covered my dream with during all these years.

How are your dreams?

Lawana