God-sized Dream = A desire in your heart for more of what God has for you.
We’re opening the door to God-sized dreams in 2013. So every week we get together to encourage each other {because don’t we all need it? yes, ma’am.}. This week Nasreen Fynewever is here to share about God-sized dreams with you…
Hi.
Get in the car.
Yep, that one. The one rigged with cameras, loaded down with extra food, blankets, and a flashlight.
Yes, now. Amidst the storm and messiness of life, let’s go chasing.
No, not storm chasing–we are going Hope chasing.
Let’s find ways to make it through this crazy life together.
Let’s figure out how to best teach our students and work alongside our colleagues.
Let’s learn how to compassionately interact with those in our dorms, offices, work site, and homes.
Let’s find the good aspects of our family and day–to-day life.
Let’s have conversations in the church, on Facebook, and at the coffee shop.
Let’s be real; honest.
Let’s let go of regret and forgive ourselves.
Let’s run towards intelligent people who emulate the life we want to live.
Let’s be intentional in friendship so that community happens.
Let’s set aside our egocentric hours to serve someone else.
Let’s run into the Scriptures to learn the lessons we need to.
This is hope chasing. This is my dream. Will you join me?
The car?
I see you staring it down. Don’t let the outside fool you. So it has a few dents, its look pretty rusty, and the headlight seems to be busted out. That is actually mud spattered on the back window and truth be told, I am not sure what is covering the passenger side.
Get in the open door anyways. I am not driving.
I got in the same side you did and the ride has been incredible and the inside is transformed beyond your imagination.
“Dare to make a difference” is written on the plaque sitting in my office. I got in the car a year ago with the Dream Giver and have watched the weeks and month unfold like nothing I had planned. In my daring, God got His mad skill of driving on. The dare was to get in the “difference maker mobile” and pour myself into living out His will. I haven’t done it perfectly, but He never asks me to. And you know what, I have not just survived, I have thrived.
Just so you know, friend, thriving took flexibility. It took saying no sometimes so that I was able to say yes to what let me chase hope. It took staying in the car for the swamp when an abort plan seemed safer. It took still believing there was more to come during the times the view was so spectacular I could have just sat forever. It took others. Yes others. It took letting others into spaces of my heart and running towards the open arms and email inboxes even when I wanted to resort to tunnel vision of just me.
Thriving in the dream, this is hope for me. My son wanting to thank God for 6 things during prayer rather than the one we require, this is hope for me. My boss being patient with my opinions and willing to honor my requests, this is hope for me. My friends caring when their lives are busy, this is hope for me.
But hope is chased even when hurt is large and boulders abound. The snapshots I took when I could inhale the fragrance of hope because it was in the same room as I was, those snapshots beckon me when grief, trials, or hard work surround. Friend, if we don’t take snapshots of hope and hold them in our hearts, the ugly will consume us.
We can be free.
I follow a guy. He drives the car. He gives me the camera and says to archive His faithfulness and His extreme beauty, because then, hope chasing will grant life.
The guy? He served. He wept. He loved. He hoped. Might you get in the car with us? There is room!
I cheer for you because He lived the freest life I have ever seen and He lets me roll down the window and shout your name with Him.
Hear Him.
Not me.
Chase hope. Today.
#hopechaser
For all that you enjoy and for that which you endure, dream a while with Holley and chase hope a bit while you are at it,
***
Nasreen Fynewever is a teacher at heart. She has spent time educating middle, high, and college students as well as led a thirty course church university. Having relocated with her husband and three young boys from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Minneapolis, Minnesota in the Spring of 2012, Nasreen has explored her dreams in areas of writing and speaking. In the past year she has been a part of David Kinnaman’s You Lost Me Live” national tour, Holley Gerth’s Dreams Team, Jumping Tandem: The Retreat, and now the Allume Conference. She looks forward to speaking at Minnesota’s Bethany Christian Services Gala this year to share a part of her story of adoption and chasing hope.
To learn more about what Nasreen is doing now, read and wander around to linked posts within “When South Carolina Calls and Allume is on the phone line.
To read the original start of this dreamer becoming a Hope Chaser, visit the post written during the application process to Holley Gerth’s mentorship program.
