dreams

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to grow up and be an elementary school teacher, live in a house in the suburbs of North Carolina, and have a family. I thought for sure that’s what I would be doing with my life up until about a year ago.

One evening in the fall of my sophomore year of college, I dropped to my knees in exhaustion and just started praying. My heart had been ripped out and stomped on and my mind was burned out from taking too many classes in one semester. I’d had enough. All the plans I’d made for myself were only leading me down paths of frustration and heartache. That evening I gave up my “dreams” and plans that I’d made. But rather than growing bitter and detached, I asked God for help. I told Him that for as long and as hard as I worked at planning my own life I sucked at it. I couldn’t do it. I told Him that if I was going to make it and have any sort of joy it would have to be because of Him. So I begged. I was on my knees crying and begging God. My plans weren’t cutting it. I flat out asked Him to knock my socks off with His plans for my life. I asked Him to surprise me, to make plans for me that I could never have dreamed of and so I would know that they were from Him. And He hasn’t let me down.

While my dream used to be to grow up and teach elementary kids, God has changed my heart. I still love working with kids, but my desire is now to see university students fall in love with God and change their campus for Him.

As for my dream of living in the suburbs of NC, well, it could happen some day I suppose. But for now, God has me in the suburbs of Vancouver, BC. Never had I imagined, let alone dreamed, of living in Canada. That one is completely from God.

The Lord also gave me a wonderful husband. We got married when I was barely twenty-two so a family may still be in the picture, but not for a few years (Lord willing).

When God does your dreaming for you, you will be amazed. You will be in the parking lot of a Starbucks and suddenly realize that you are in a foreign place, doing a job that you feel slightly inadequate for, living a life you never pictured. Then you will realize that even in the most bizarre circumstances God is in complete control.