Dream Again

If you blow all the seed off a dandelion in a single breath, your wish will come true, so they say.  I’ve also heard that if you can catch dandelion fuzz mid-air, make a wish, and then release it, your wish will come true.  Blow out all the candles on the birthday cake in one breath, your wish will come true.  Throw a coin in a wishing well/fountain and speak your wish aloud–it will come true.  Then, of course, the infamous:

I confess to having done all of these.  The floating dandelion fuzz has taken precedence now that I’m an adult because I find it more challenging.  The greater the challenge, the more successful the wish.  Okay, I’m kidding.  Sort of.  I don’t put much stock in the “wishing games”, but I do still participate.  Sometimes it feels good to me to put an act behind my wish rather than keep it to myself.  I find if fulfilling to catch crazily spinning dandelion fuzz in midair, make my wish, then release it back to the wind, back to God.  Why not?  I’ve done something.  I’ve acted on my belief that God hears and I trust that He will answer, no matter how silly it seems.

One of my dear friends of decades–gosh, that looks like a long time on paper–just celebrated a birthday.  I usually send her a card exalting friendship and its infinitesimal value, but this year I felt a different message was in order.  This year I’ve been mulling a lot of stuff over.  My ruminations spilled over onto my birthday wishes for her.  The card I chose was shimmery with a dandelion on the outside.  Plain, but pretty.  On the inside, the gist of the message: Just believe.  My personal note to her went something like this:

“Maybe it’s due to age, maybe it’s due to time, but it seems to me dreams sometimes get buried and may even feel like they’re dead.  This year, revisit your hopes, your dreams, and your wishes, and dare to believe that with God they will come true.  May this year be the fulfillment of what you’ve hoped for for so very long.”

Within a couple of days of sending that card, I was reading a letter from a minister and you’ll never guess what his topic was.  Pick up your dream again.  Confirmation.  Ain’t that something how that works?

That leads me to the crux of today’s post:

First: Remember.  Remember what God has said.  The LORD has directed me to return to my journals and collect the words He has spoken to me.  I’ve recently heard of others who have been directed to do the same.

What secret joy has been locked away so long in your heart that you fear it has died?  It isn’t dead, you know.  Think.  Your adulthood may be a nightmare.  In fact, much of your childhood may have been a nightmare.  But there is something there.  There is a memory of something that was spoken to you or something that you did that you return to that makes you smile.

My memory is when I was 5-ish.  I sat on bulky, stone steps and belted out “Jesus Loves Me” for the entire neighborhood and anyone traveling through it to hear.  I also scooped clay out of the little stream behind our rented trailer and shaped it for what felt like hours.  And swinging!  I loved to swing.  I aimed my feet for the sun and tried to touch it.  The heights I achieved freaked an elementary school teacher of mine out pretty good and all right.

Your memory may be like looking through a fog, but it’s there, and every time you consider it, it brings you joy.  Ask the LORD to bring clarity.  He will.  That is the moment, that is the place, when His presence was tangible to you.  In that moment you experienced a bit of Heaven on earth.  He wants to take you there again.  He wants you to live in that place, in His presence, His peace and joy, here on earth.  It is possible, you know.

Second, and this is going to sound totally contradictory to the first: Forget.

 

Forget what?  Forget the words of the father who said you’d never amount to anything.  Forget the words of the mother who said she wished you’d never been born. Forget the words of the former teacher who said you’d never succeed.  Forget the words of the ex who said you weren’t worthy of love.  Forget the words of the doctor who said you’d never be healed much less be whole.  Forget the words of the clergy who said poverty is a virtue.  Forget the life you lived when the words and actions of those around you broke your heart and crushed your spirit.  In Christ, all things can be made new.  In Christ.  Not religion, not some fantasy god, in Christ alone.

Third: Believe.  Believe what Jesus says.

The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.  John 6:63  NLT

The very words Jesus spoke are spirit and life.  But we must believe.  And we haven’t a clue what to believe if we aren’t listening to Holy Spirit’s voice and reading God’s Word.  How bad do we want life?  I myself want to be a vessel and a conduit of life.

Join me today in: Remembering.  Forgetting.  Believing.

Let’s pick up those long gone hopes and broken dreams.  God is breaking the shackles of the past from off of us and doing a new thing.  Let’s believe and receive with joy and let Him do His work.

This song is going to seem like it’s over, but it isn’t.  Enjoy as you listen to the end.