God’s Dream for Us

Sometimes I marvel at how quickly life  passes by and days become weeks, and years become decades.  Mike and I have now been married for nearly 27 years and that seems impossible.  It was just last year (in my mind) that we stood at twilight’s edge in an outdoor ceremony and promised that we would stay together no matter what life brought our way.  Have you ever thought about the unfairness of those vows?  Seriously, who can ever know what lies ahead beyond the white dress, the flowers, the well wishes, the ceremony, the rings, the promises?  Thankfully we can only see the here and now or no one would ever repeat those oh-so-simple vows to say but harder to live out!  I think I’m hearing resounding “Amens” floating through the universe right now.

Marriage began with many dreams of our future jobs, houses, travels, children, etc.  Looking back God has allowed so many of those dreams to come to fruition but in some cases, He altered our dreams.  He gave us His dream for us instead.  Surely that is the case with our children.  Our dream was a houseful of six little girls.  Somehow they all had long blond hair and played peacefully in flowing white dresses in fields of daisies.  There was never dirt or pain included in our dreams.  But in God’s dream, there would still be six children but they looked and played out far differently than in our dreams.

Our first three little ones lived in my body for far too short a time and then moved to the Heavenly nursery which in my estimation is much too far away.  We believed they were girls and named them Faith, Hope, and Charity.  Ironic isn’t it?  Those three character traits flow so easily together in the Bible.  Little did we realize they would fall in succession in our family heritage as names of our “angels.”  Then came our sweet Emma.  In our dream she would be perfect and healthy.  In God’s dream she is a mess!!!  But a perfect mess.  She is nearing age 13 and still doesn’t walk or talk but she is full of personality.  Oh, how I love that girl.

Our amazing Emma Grace

We dared to dreamed once more and again God trumped our dream by giving us Jonathan Michael.  A beautiful, perfectly round-cheeked, full term baby boy who went to Heaven during delivery.  I will forever cherish those moments of holding him against me and feeling the weight of him in my arms.

Dreaming became too painful after Jonathan and so we stopped dreaming.  Our home would be complete with just the three of us.  Emma was enough.  She kept us busy and we cherished the opportunity to be her parents.  We pushed her hard to reach her potential and tried to give her everything we possibly could that resembled a normal life.

We were through dreaming but God wasn’t.  In His humorous and loving way, He dreamed about one more child for us.  To our GREAT surprise, Spencer Michael came along and absolutely rocked our world.  It was an anxiety-filled pregnancy but God was so gracious and we were blessed to deliver a son that celebrated his 8th birthday just three days ago.

Spencer...God's amazing gift to us.

Spencer completed our family in a way we never could have dreamed of on our own.  He is absolutely 100% Heaven sent.  He is hand-picked by God to be the brother that Emma needs.  Tender hearted and a dreamer.  He is all boy.  He is a clone of his father in looks, actions, and intellect.  He loves God and has a huge reservoir of compassion for others.

We all dream.  Some dreams are unrealistic.  Some are terrifying.  Some are filled with our hearts desires.  Some are selfish.  Some are within reach but met with fear.  But the best dreams are those that we don’t even dream for ourselves.  Those that are born in the heart of God within the corridors of Heaven.  Those are the best ones.

Often God’s dreams for us take a while to unravel and come to fruition.  We see His stages of development as painful, or uncaring, or not in our best interest, or unfair.  How silly we are to doubt that the One who created us would ever dream of anything other than that which is best for us.

I’m sad for all the times I’ve doubted that His dreams for me were far better than my dreams for myself.

What are you dreaming of?  Perhaps you should join me in surrendering your dreams and accepting the dreams God has for you.

Blessings to you,

Renee