God-sized Dream = A desire in your heart for more of what God has for you.
With All My Heart Print by Studio JRU
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 Shelly Miller is here to share about God-sized dreams with you…
*****
A dog-eared Bride Magazine lay on the center of an orange shag circle of elbows and smiles. The new issue is the spotlight of lazy afternoon conversation at the home of my high school girlfriend, our frayed jean legs bumping into stacks of Velveteen dreams.
I never owned a copy of any bridal magazine. I was too afraid to dream like that. It seemed so . . . presumptuous.
How does a young girl awakened by the drunkards her mother brings home after midnight, dream of tufted trains and bouquets of beauty? Dreaming of prince charming meant opening my heart to potential disappointment. So I avoided them: dreams and disappointment.
That’s what I thought about – that shag carpet and dog-eared pages of bridal wishes – when my coach asked me to dream while I twisted pasta around the tongs of my fork. “If money and circumstance were not in the equation and you could do anything, what would you do,” he challenged me across the table. “What is it that makes your heart race when you think about doing it?”
Do I dare say it out loud?
I looked over at H sitting next to me in the booth, his very presence the fulfillment of a dream I feared wouldn’t come true. His mother asked me the same question while twisting the new twinkle around my finger. “What do you dream of when you think about your wedding day,” she inquired. And together we began to sketch in the colors of dreams, pulling threads of hope from the skein of my discarded wishes.
“I want to write from passion, not duty,” I exhaled the admission between bites. Saying those words out loud, they popped the cork off my dreams and vision glugged all over the table.
A few weeks later, I quit the writing job I loved, and stepped out in faith to start a blog, writing stories to help people think differently. It wasn’t until Jeff Goins made a comment during our conversation a year later that I realized the smallness of my expectations, in comparison to God-sized dreams.
When I told Jeff about the gifts I didn’t expect from blogging – the new relationships, transformational conversations, answered prayers – he responded, “So, you have a ministry supported by a blog.”
It sounds so simple doesn’t it? But his words carried revelation. I saw it the other way around. Thought I had a blog, growing into a ministry.
The thing I’ve learned about God-sized dreams? They are the manifestation of His desire for our lives and He will go to any lengths to see them realized. Will you? Because the only thing worse than suffering disappointment or failure, is letting fear win. Keeping our dreams buried inside like a butterfly too afraid of the unknowns outside the cocoon; averting the risk, only to miss out on the beauty of flying free.
While on a car ride with H, flipping through the pages of a magazine on my lap, he looked over at me with his hands on the steering wheel and asked me, “Why haven’t you started writing your book yet?” I looked down and turned another page. While I was thinking about my reply, I’m almost sure I heard that cork pop again.
What is it that makes your heart race when you think about doing it? Let’s pop the cork off our dreams together shall we?
Shelly Miller is smitten with the art of story to transform a life. She writes about her own struggles as a child of divorce and alcoholism, and the way God redeems it all as a clergy wife raising two teens. With experience as a full-time missionary, advocate for orphans in Rwanda and leader of women’s ministries for small and large congregations, she is passionate to help people realize calling despite circumstance. When her husband H isn’t leading a church planting movement in North America, they drive five minutes across the street to take a walk on the Atlantic, with a camera strapped to her shoulder. Connect with Shelly on her blog, Redemptions Beauty, on Facebook and Twitter.
*****
Now it’s your turn!
We’ve talked a lot about “what” your dream is and now it’s time to tackle the “why” behind it. Why is your dream worth pursuing, fighting for and seeing through no matter what happens? Link up your post sharing your answer below. {If you don’t have a blog, you can share in the comments.}
So we can all find each other, please include this God-sized Dreams button in your post. Also, love on your fellow God-sized dreamin’ sisters by leaving a comment on the post before yours.
“Fear hangs out right next to whatever it is you’re most called to do. That means the closer you get to your calling, the louder fear sounds. Keep going–fear is a chihuahua that sounds like a Doberman.” — You’re Made for a God-sized Dream, Chapter Five
For next week: It’s time to have a little talk with the fear in your life. Write a letter that starts out, “Dear Chihuahua of Fear, I have some things I’d like to say to you…” {Is this kinda silly? Um, yes, but that’s the point. Fear always tries to make us take it more seriously than we should.} Link up your letter here next Tuesday. Extra credit if you can make us laugh out loud.
p.s. Jennifer from Studio JRU, a fabulous artist and friend, is offering everything in her collection {like the beautiful print above} to you for 20% off in April. She creates all her pieces by hand and they make fabulous one-of-a-kind gifts {Mother’s Day is coming}! Just enter code HolleyGerth when you check out.
