On Following Your Dreams

I recently finished Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis, (I definitely recommend it) and throughout the book she talks about following your dreams, making your dreams a reality, and imagining your dreams with such vividness that you can't but assume they will be achieved. So naturally, I started asking myself "What are my dreams?" and, well, I was kind of stuck. Maybe it was the fact that for the last few months, life had been a little bit more of a valley than a peak, and therefore I was feeling unsure about myself and the life that, until recently, I'd been pretty darn proud of building. 

Getting a little panicky, I started barraging myself...have I lost my ability to dream? Have the difficulties and realities of life gotten to me so much that I can't even dream big dreams anymore? Am I so caught up in my day to day that I can't even think outside the box of my small world? Of course, my impatience does not help this kind of self talk tornado, so for the last few weeks I've been asking myself and God to reveal my "dreams" as if something huge would slap me in the face. 

When I was younger, I had intense dreams to travel abroad and be a huge international business mogul. This later turned into aspirations of working in academia and being an amazing professor who travels the world for research. While I did achieve my dream of traveling during college and post graduate, I got married afterwards and had kids, and well, everything changed. The reality of putting others needs before mine happened. It wasn't just about me anymore. All my dreams changed, and not in a bad way, in a really good way but also a completely different way. The huge goals of being an international business mogul don't hold quite the same luster they used to and I'm more prone to daydream about making my home beautiful and getting a lake home to make family memories at, but somehow these kinds of dream don't seem like they are enough, not big enough - too boring.

Then, this past week, while listening to a Lenten reflection I felt a bit of an epiphany when I heard (I'm paraphrasing), "I believe that God's dreams for me are far bigger than those I have for myself." I have tried to trust that God will lead me by the right path (certainly not my spiritual strong point), even though I know nothing about it. Ultimately that's all I can do. I have recently come to discover and find great peace in the fact that doing all things, especially the little things, with great love, detail, and gratitude drastically changes what could be seen as simple and mundane tasks in life into extraordinary moments. This doesn't mean we shouldn't dream or push hard for goals we want, but I think that sometimes just waiting, watching and discerning the paths that are being opened to us, exactly where we are planted, can lead to far greater paths than we could have ever imagined for ourselves.

Looking back, I can see throughout my life the hand of God guiding me. I somewhat tried to follow the paths that were opened to me and that made the most "sense." During the times where I chose paths that were clearly not right for me, life was rough, and not make you stronger kind of rough, but make you fall apart and pull you away from what is good in life. When I chose what felt right and true (not necessarily easy or simple), I became a better version of myself and opportunities continued to reveal themselves. Many of these paths have been long and challenging and I didn't always feel certain in the thick of it that I was truly doing the right thing. I realize how vague this may all sound and it kind of is but my favorite prayer reveals the depth of this life long struggle we all have, and it fills me up when I'm feeling uncertain about life's paths:

"I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone." - Thomas Merton

Trusting that God will reveal his dreams for us when the time is right and then working each day with love is all we can do.

Happiness

"Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want." - Mark Twain

Truer words were never spoken. I have found in life that many times people, myself included, have said comments such as "If it makes you happy, that's all that matters." The older I get, the more I realize this statement is bullsh*t. We say it without thinking, but this means that our happiness and therefore our emotional and spiritual well-being is conditional and based upon the influences in our lives. What if something that hurts another makes you happy? But I digress...

What I am driving at here is that while I am not perfect in this area at all, I have found that contentment - even better than happiness - comes from within. First and foremost is comes from the incredible knowledge that I am a Child of God. This is something that will never change and therefore is a constant that I can always count on in my life. However, I do have to choose to accept this knowledge and own it. 

After I accept this fact, I have to let it resonate throughout my life. I think all would agree this is the most difficult part. This means accepting that God knows best for me and therefore I am exactly where I am meant to be at this point in my life - physically, emotionally, vocationally, etc. This is where Twain's quote is so relevant. I find that I am consantly in a state of "waiting", a perpetual anxiousness of wishing and wanting for the next part of my life to unfold and when it does, I wish I knew what was next. 

What if we just embraced the present? What if we lived it fully and unapologetically? What if we made a decision each day to be happy with what we had and where we were, no exceptions? Sounds pretty incredible to me.

Mother's Day Reflection - a New Mother's Love

It is incredibly amazing to me how my life has changed since bringing our daughter into the world. I realize this isn't new to all the parents out there, but let me take you back to the beginning of your journey as parents and for those of you who have yet to join this unique club, let me tell you it is the ride of your life - and this is coming from someone who is just getting started.

First, let me say that describing the love of a child is impossible because it is something that resonates in your very core. When I just think upon my daughter and her little face - I know it well from studying it and staring at it avidly most of the day - it fills my whole body and soul with a pure, unending love. It is different from the love I have for anyone else in my life. There are people I love so dearly that it hurts sometimes when I think about them. However, my love for them is an active, daily decision that I learned, and it continues to grow and deepen with every day, but I must work at this kind of love. I don't have to work at loving my baby girl - the love just exists.

I will be honest with you, though. I do not have that amazing birth story about how incredible I felt as I held my baby girl for the first time. I truly felt very little other than pure amazement that she was actually here. I don't think it even dawned on me that I was going to meet the little being that had lived inside of me for nine months until the last moments of labor when they were shouting at me "She's almost here!" I had this thought pass through my head, I remember looking at my husband too, and thinking "Oh! We're about to meet her." Just like that, the thought flitted through my brain and when they placed her on my chest all I could think was, "She doesn't look like me. Is this really what my daughter looks like?" And, "She sure has a hairy back, poor thing, gets that from her father." Seriously, these are the thoughts that went through my head.

While I was very excited, I also think that the weight of the emotions, preparation, and (oh yeah) a baby in me for the last 9 months and 12 hours of labor had exhausted everything; leaving me devoid of excitement and just plain exhausted. As family members came in to hold her, I was just kind of floating mentally between time and space.

I have to say that during those first moments what I felt was more of an instinctual love of my daughter. I wanted to protect her, keep her safe and do whatever needed to be done - my radar only focused on her, but as the days grew into weeks and now the weeks into months, it is incredible that my heart has been able to grow so big. I did not realize how little it had been previously. Nor had I realized how selfish I was. I don't mean this in a negative way to all those without children; I mean it to describe how much of my 'self' I have had to leave behind in order to make room for this little being and all the love that it necessary to provide for her physical and emotional needs.

Previously, I posted about how my love for my daughter has revealed God's love for me. It has also revealed how much he gave for me on the cross and how truly unselfish our Lord has been with me throughout my life. He has given me all the necessities I need to survive and thrive, and he has watched me patiently stumble through life and gently and patiently picks me up and waits for me to go the right way.

I never knew how much having a child would erase "myself" and smooth out my rough spots - believe me it will take too many children to smooth it all away - and the funny part is that this is exactly what I was afraid of when I was pregnant - losing "me." Isn't that what our postmodern society is always yelling at us from the pages of every magazine and TV ad? - preserve the almighty self. What I have come to find is that losing sight of yourself by giving yourself completely to another, that is true love. Finally, the true task of life makes sense - Mother Teresa put is best, "True love is surrender. The more we love the more we surrender. If we really love souls we must be ready to take their place."

Lenten Revelation

I decided to not listen to music in the car for Lent and have therefore experienced quite a bit more silence than I typically do, especially over Spring Break when I took two trips to Fort Wayne. While I certainly enjoy silence, it is incredible how an hour of silence opens your mind. In the Old Testament it talks about how God did not speak in strong winds or loud sounds but in a small whisper, and I have been able to experience these small whispers through the silence, albeit in the car rather than in the nature. Nevertheless, in the silence of my second hour long trip to the north, I was contemplating how much I love my daughter - something I dwell upon frequently these days - and although it may sound dramatic, a revelation occurred to me about the love of the Father. I finally understand, of course in my small, human way, the love that my heavenly Father has for me. Nothing my daughter could ever do would change my love for her - absolutely nothing. I realize we will hit rough patches in our relationship down the road, but that deep abiding love that I cannot compare to any other feeling or desire or relationship in my life, it will never cease to reside within me. Finally, I have a glimpse of how much the Lord cares for his children.