She was barely in her 20’s when she whispered her dreams in her husbands ear. He stared at her in disbelief. “What am I supposed to do with two kids?”
I was one of those kids. Too young to know that my mom had just told my dad she wanted to be a missionary.
That desire stirred in my mothers heart for many years. She had wanted to go but instead she raised us first. Loved us well. Modeled the love of the Lord. Studied the word, went back to school to get her degree in education and after we had left home, spread her wings as if they had been growing in grace and beauty for just the right timing. God’s timing.
There are dreams we have inside of us. Some must wait. Others never come to be. But to dream...is to breathe.
Recently I spoke with a woman who told me that her daughter very much wanted and expected her to be a nanny to her child. This sweet woman looked at my mother who was visiting me from her life as a missionary in Cambodia and said:
“Now that I’m retired, I so long to get rid of my things and just go. I want to live MY life. I just don’t know how to tell my daughter that.”
I wonder if that daughter has ever heard her mothers dreams? The desires of HER heart. The ones that God planted before she was even born. There is so much MORE to a woman than just one label. One chapter. One season. Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Lawyer. Nurse. Stay at home mom. Social worker. Teacher. We are these things as women. But we are also so much more.
The dreams of others need lifting not anchoring from the hands of loved ones. If only we could find it in ourselves to let go and watch them soar.
Let go of who you think your mother, your father, your sister, your brother are supposed to be...so they can go live THEIR dreams without your imposed guilt. ( cue the animated theme song, we all know and love... Let it go!) Balloons drifting up and away in the sunlit sky. Freedom.
And I think of my mom. So young. Two little girls and a husband to take care of and her dreams burning bright inside of her. My mother was a WONDERFUL, nurturing mother, but it wasn’t the only desire she had. She waited patiently until it was her turn and then she flew magnificently out into the place of her dreams. (with my dad by her side) To the place where she heard The Lord call to her. The place where she would no longer be labelled just mother or wife. She would be so much more and is.
How about you? What dreams are growing inside of you? Have you prayed about it? Are you in a season of waiting for your dreams to be fulfilled? How has the waiting been a challenge for you? What about letting go? Is there something or someone you need to let go? Someone else’s dreams you need to support, pray for and encourage?
God is the creator of all dreams. He alone gives us the desires of our hearts. We should go to Him in our need, in our waiting and in our yearning. We should ask Him to fill us while we wait. Ask him to give us a desire to be MORE than the label we’ve heard all our lives and ask Him to surround us with encouragers when we become brave enough to step out into our dream...at the right time. His time.
Psalm 37:4
Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
