DREAMS
by
Alyce Kate Serpell
Dreaming into the unknown of known.
What do you dream about? What do you want?
This is a question that resounds through many people’s lives. People that feel stuck in their life, or may have a desire for adventure but aren’t sure what or where, people looking for direction or affirmation, people searching for answers, people who have accomplished their dreams and are looking for new ones. What do you dream about? What do you want? A question that is or should be asked of everyone. A question always requires an answer. What is your answer?
This question was started for me in a conversation with my friend. We’d been enjoying some time together and they had been showing me around, showing me some new places that I hadn’t seen before. We weren’t there to discuss dreams or purposes in life, we weren’t having a deep and meaningful, we were just together, in our moment, being. My friend is very joyful, such an example of love and peace and purpose and knows who they are and live strongly in that. I admire them a lot and love to be around them, they are so full of rest and smiles. I smile inside and outside just thinking about them.
When they asked me the question, “What is it you want Alyce? What do you dream about? I felt stumped, what is it that I want? Do I even know? I had to leave straight after they asked me this question but I knew it would require an answer, something I would have to think about, that sentence could not end with a question mark.
If we look back into our childhood we can get a glimpse of what we dreamed of being. Maybe it was a brother who always wanted to play church and they would be the pastor, or a friend that loved to dance and sing to music, or maybe it was a young girl named Alyce that loved to play house and mummies and daddies.
What did you imagine being when you were a kid?
That brother is now an amazing youth pastor and that friend is now an accomplished piano player and worship leader. These childhood games were an opening, a window into their soul, into who the Lord created them to be. I am neither a wife nor a mother, … yet. So until then, and beyond then, what is it I dream about, what sparks a passion in me, what makes me feel excited? What is Gods pre-destined, anointed, appointed, favor filled, grace surrounded, love invaded dream that resides in my heart?
To dream is like the bird knowing it has wings to fly, to step into the wind is what carries that knowledge into reality, “… he soared on the wings of the wind” – Samuel 22:11. Dreams are fascinating, so full of possibility, endlessness and hope, desire, but unless the wind comes and picks those dreams up and a way is found to breathe them into reality, that is where they will remain, locked up inside your head. It is not until the dreams steps into reality that you truly see the impossible dreams bow to risk, persistence and intentional pursuit. It takes faith to fly on a wind you can’t see but tells you it will carry you. It takes faith to step when you have fallen. It takes faith to believe when you have felt forsaken. It takes faith to risk when familiarity has been your closest companion. It takes one step into the wind and whoosh it’s got you.
I loved to pretend to cook and create, I would ride my bike and pretend I was winning a triathlon, I would watch the runners go by on the street and imagine being a great runner, I loved beautiful things and would set up a whole picnic just for me so that I could lounge in my backyard in beauty, with lollipops and cordial and pillows and flowers, it was as though I loved the setting up possibly more than the actual enjoying of what I’d set up, I would play on my parents bed clinging to the doona pretending that my life was in danger as I hung over the edge of a cliff, I would pretend to be a stall owner and sell my goods, I loved to play dress ups and put pegs on my nails like I had beautiful long nails, I would sit and scribble on paper over and over and over again, line after line before I even knew how to write, I loved to play in this imaginary world that could be anything and anywhere I wanted, it was endless.
Childhood perspective on life, on being an ‘adult’ is such a beautiful thing. You have such hopes and dreams and truly believe there is endless possibility, that anything really is possible. Then, you get older, life throws you some unexpected blows that weren’t in your vision of what being ‘older’ would look like, and this wasn’t in the plan. Life gets busier and more grown up, expectation starts to mount. What is lost? Is it your ability to dream, to believe? We are created to be dreamers just as God is love, dreaming is innate. So is dreaming lost? I feel the dreamer is always alive, but rather hope has been replaced by discouragement, disappointment, fear or regret,
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is the tree of life.”
Without hope the dreamer within becomes unseen, she is alive but her breath has become silent. Hope blows its mighty wind on the dreamer and her voice is once again heard.
I myself have known what it is to have a sick heart, to have a silent dreamer alive within me, to have hope replaced by incredible disappointment. Time showed me my sick heart, as the Holy Spirit desired my dreamers voice to be heard once again. Its not that the dreamer had died, its that her voice had been taken away, she is always alive. To dream is to take breath.
To hear the sound of the dreamer again is like a mighty vibration shaking the foundations. The dust no longer has a place to settle.
So, as I mentioned at the beginning, I had been asked a question,
What do you dream about? What do you want?
When I was a little girl I dreamed about being a wife and a mother.
I still do, now that I am older my idea of what this will look like may have changed but I still have the same excitement and anticipation. It’s still one of my greatest dreams.
When I was a little girl I loved clothes and playing dress ups.
I still do, now that I am older I dream about making clothes. Even the other day I saw a picture of the ocean and the waves coming in and it gave me an idea for a top.
When I was a little girl I enjoyed pretending I was a cook whether I was in my backyard or at the beach there way always food to be made.
I still do, now that I am older I am studying Natural Medicine and have a passion for great food. I get so much joy out of making something nourishing and delicious. I made bread the other day and for the first time I was successful. It was a great moment for my dreamer.
I have many more dreams now, but I can feel the focusing of my dreamer on the question asked,
“… What do you want?”
So I told him, I told him what’s close to my heart right now in this moment of my life. This will change because he is a faithful friend.
My prayer is, Lord enlarge my capacity to dream, to dream out of the box and in doing so help me give dreamers back their voices and vision. Let HOPE arise!
She lined her teddies up and would preach to them, now she is a preacher in the making. She has preached many times and is taking a course of preaching which she was personally invited to attend, she has had many words spoken over her life about being a preacher.
She decided when she was younger she wanted to marry a prince and be the best wife and mother, this was her childhood dream and now she is living it.
Walt Disney : Today Disney rakes in billions from merchandise, movies and theme parks around the world, but Walt Disney himself had a bit of a rough start. He was fired by a newspaper editor because, "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." After that, Disney started a number of businesses that didn't last too long and ended with bankruptcy and failure. He kept plugging along, however, and eventually found a recipe for success that worked.
Most of us take Einstein's name as synonymous with genius, but he didn't always show such promise. Einstein did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven, causing his teachers and parents to think he was mentally handicapped, slow and anti-social. Eventually, he was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. It might have taken him a bit longer, but most people would agree that he caught on pretty well in the end, winning the Nobel Prize and changing the face of modern physics.
Winston Churchill : This Nobel Prize-winning, twice-elected Prime Minster of the United Kingdom wasn't always as well regarded as he is today. Churchill struggled in school and failed the sixth grade. After school he faced many years of political failures, as he was defeated in every election for public office until he finally became the Prime Minister at the ripe old age of 62.
Most people know Oprah as one of the most iconic faces on TV as well as one of the richest and most successful women in the world. Oprah faced a hard road to get to that position, however, enduring a rough and often abusive childhood as well as numerous career setbacks including being fired from her job as a television reporter because she was "unfit for tv."
Fred Astaire : In his first screen test, the testing director of MGM noted that Astaire, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." Astaire went on to become an incredibly successful actor, singer and dancer and kept that note in his Beverly Hills home to remind him of where he came from.
During his lifetime, Van Gogh sold only one painting, and this was to a friend and only for a very small amount of money. While Van Gogh was never a success during his life, he plugged on with painting, sometimes starving to complete his over 800 known works. Today, they bring in hundreds of millions.
J.K Rowling may be rolling in a lot of Harry Potter dough today, but before she published the series of novels she was nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, trying to raise a child on her own while attending school and writing a novel. Rowling went from depending on welfare to survive to being one of the richest women in the world in a span of only five years through her hard work and determination.
Few people can deny the lasting power of this super group, The Beatles, still popular with listeners around the world today. Yet when they were just starting out, a recording company told them no. The were told "we don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out," two things the rest of the world couldn't have disagreed with more.
Michael Jordan : Most people wouldn't believe that a man often lauded as the best basketball player of all time was actually cut from his high school basketball team. Luckily, Jordan didn't let this setback stop him from playing the game and he has stated, "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
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| "Dreaming gives rise to hope which encourages the dreamer." |
