Dreams

I just finished reading a book titled The Dream Giver. My honest opinion was that although it had a dash of salt and truth in it-- it was definitely over simplified. However, the message was clearly one that God intended for me to hear. After emanate, a young adult worship night, I was talking to a new friend and right before I left to go home he started spouting off the exact words and key points of the book. He spoke truth of dreaming big and defeating giants in order to succeed. It was all very inspirational.

The only trouble of the whole thing is somehow in the midst of growing up and everything somehow I feel like I'm dreamless. I look back and I see a dreamless girl as well... I remember being encouraged by teachers to write out goals- Which I loved because I loved lists, but I also kind of despised because boxing my dreams into phrases on a list and limiting myself seemed so dreary. Goals and dreams are great. Amazing even. Really limiting yourself can be a major blessing to your direction in life, but for some reason.... I'm still dreamless. Not that I don't have dreams and goals, but as someone once told me "if your dream isn't worth your life, dream bigger." Well, perhaps I'm in a stage of dreaming bigger. I don't know, but nothing really seems worth my life. I feel caught in Ecclesiastes, "everything is meaningless under the sun".

I know my life has purpose however and that I am in a stage of growing and refinement so that I can dream and pursue those dreams, but I feel caught in a desert perhaps where those dreams cannot yet exist until I learn the qualities and character that they will one day require.

Love

What is love? Is it lust? Desire? Something that makes you happy? A feeling? A fancy?

No. It is so much more. Love is pain. It is hard. It is work. Difficult. Self sacrifice.

If I could choose to make life easy somedays I think I'd have to choose not to love. Love isn't easy. It isn't always pretty. All too often it hurts me without the other person even caring at all.

Even though choosing to not love is easy... Loving is worth it. Love brings a beauty to life. A freshness and variety. The difficult self sacrificial love takes a normal day and makes it extraordinary. Love changes you. Changes your motives and creates a focus that doesn't begin and end with you. Love is different than what it seems at first. Deeper, humbler, life giving.

There are so many "false" loves easily obsessed over and made into Love. But those don't stand the test. Instead of being patient... floves are ready for what is next and in a rush. Love slows down even when the world is rushing by. Floves are unkind. They pretend to be a friend and then give them pain or grief; they steal or kill. Love hugs a sick friend even when love will end up in a sick bed as a result. Envy is floves' best friend, greed is its motivation. Flove always wants more, unsatisfied with what it can get today. Love sees that others have more, but also that some have less and focuses on what we can do to give to the poor. Floves brag about all a flove can do. All the feelings it brings about... the strength it has, the power, the control. Love can be silent and just listen even to floves. Floves are proud. Love is another story.

Tonight, I'd like to make the decision to always choose Love. My life isn't worth any more floves.

(I'm so thankful for the friends who have given me images of Love in action recently. Julia Amend and Betsy Dell are two such friends.. although there are many others. )

Purposeful Living

You can live each day only once. Even easier you can sleep, eat, work through each and every day. Harder to do something with your day and discover the world around you. Even harder to purposefully do something special each day. To learn something new each day, discover something new or explore a new place-- even to just read a new book. When I was little I had no trouble spending my days exploring and discovering, reading and solving mysteries. Everything was a mystery and the world seemed much more daunting and spectacularly big and mysterious. Now the world still has its mysteries, but it is easy to fall into the pace of living like everyone else. Letting the mysterious pass me by with a simple gesture of I'll do that later or an excuse that there are many more opportunities to explore that will come my way. I have decided my life isn't worth excuses or living each day just to sleep, eat and work. I'm going to do something with my days to make my life different-- to actually live it. To learn, grow and discover.

Today, I will show glimpses of what I have done this year so far.... and hopefully I will be able to become more consistent in actually taking on something new. Or doing something fun.