Life Dreams

It started when I was five or six years old, perhaps even younger. I was "Mom", to several dolls and teddy bears. I "cooked food" for my "children" at my play kitchen center and took them out for rides in their stroller (even though the stroller was so short that I had to bend over to reach the handles). My favorite "child" was my teddy bear Max. My Auntie Sara gave him to me when I was five and I loved to carry him around everywhere. He had clothes and even a car seat. Anyways, I was sure I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up - a mama. A mama and nothing else.

Scarlett and Max, my favorite doll and favorite teddy bear

As I got a little older, I also started to become interested in being a wife 😉. I started dreaming of "Prince Charming" just like most girls do. Honestly, I was quite boy-crazy. I know most people won't admit to that, and I don't like to, but I want to be real with y'all. It only increased as I got older. Basically I was obsessed with my dream of being a wife and a mother. I believed the lie that the only way I could be fulfilled and happy, and that the only way I could be a "cool homeschooler" was if I married a homeschooled guy by twenty-one years of age and gave birth to a minimum of six babies. This dream is what I and others call the "Homeschooled Girl Dream".

Hey, don't get me wrong! Marriage and children are wonderful blessings from God. There is nothing wrong with marrying young if it's what God wants you to do. And if you did marry young, I would not assume that it was for any reason other than that it was God's will for you. The problem is not in the dream. Hold that thought for a moment and I will come back to it.

When I began to realize that getting married and having children would not make me happy, and that only God can, I began to lean more on God. But over the past year, I have continued to develop dreams. Many different dreams. Dreams of being a missionary pilot in the jungles of Papua New Guinea or in Africa, dreams of using sign language to tell deaf people about Jesus in Nigeria or Uganda... and so many more. And I have found that dreams are wonderful things. They can become our goals, and goals are what we can use to accomplish great things. They can bring joy and excitement into our lives, excitement about what God can do in us and through us.

But what I have to continually remember is what I learned with the 'Homeschooled Girl Dream", that to grip too tightly to a dream is to take the path of my life out of God's hands. I have to keep learning to stop gripping my dreams of jungle pilot, and missionary to deaf Africans, (and getting married and having children, as that is still a dream of mine) and place each and every one in the hands of my wise Lord and say to Him, "They're yours. I desire all of them. But whatever you choose for me, that I will do, and praise your name." I have to let go my deathgrip on them all and focus on my Lord, and then, whatever He has for me to do, I will be able to do it as He wants.

So keep dreaming! and have fun with it, and remember to always come back to God and put the dreams in His hands.

Proverbs 19:20-21:

Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise. Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.

Matthew 6:33:

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

James 4:13-16:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.

Proverbs 16:3-4:

Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. The LORD works out everything to its proper end— even the wicked for a day of disaster.

Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.