Dreams

Have you ever had a dream?  Not the Running-Down-The Hallway-Chasing-The-Rabbit-Making That-Crazy-Noise-Only-To-Wake-Up-And-Realize-It-Is-The-Alarm dream.  Those those are fun, too. 

I mean the "When I grow up I wanna be a rock star" dreams.  Have you ever wondered where your dreams come from?  Did God give you the dream and the opportunity to pursue it?  Did you get the dream from somewhere else and God gave you the chance to pursue it?  Do all of our dreams, hopes and ambitions come from God?  Or are they from our "humanity" and He allows us to pursue them?  Is there a mix of both?

So, I wonder, Where Do Our (My) Dreams Come From? 

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be one of 3 things 1) Country Music singer (tone deaf, not happening here) 2) Police officer (kind of a coward though) and 3) a teacher.  I pretty well settled on teacher in the 1st grade and never left.  I loved my first grade teacher.  She was wonderful.  I planned it all out - I was going to be a first grade teacher.  Until I student taught in first grade.  Then I decided to be a second grade teacher. 

Well, long story short, I decided after 5 years of teaching remedial reading, that I wanted to be a stay at home mom for 5 years, until baby number 3 (still not yet a twinkle in momma's eye) was in Kindergarten. 

Then I realized I wanted to homeschool my (at the time 4) kids.  Well, at six kids now and another 17 years of homeschooling ahead of me, I know without a doubt, that the dream, as it existed in my head for literally 20+ years will never be.

Now, I don't say that because I'm unhappy.  Quite the opposite.  I love my life, my kids, my choice to homeschool.  I have never regretted, even once, my decision.  I've never doubted it was God's plan and desire.  I'm not saying that I don't mourn a little every August.  But that time is always mixed with the excitement of our new school year starting.  I'm so blessed to experience what so few momma's (relatively speaking) get to experience.  If you aren't a homeschooler, you won't quite understand.  If you are, you totally understand.  My kids with me nearly every moment is priceless (except it the bathroom). 

But I do wonder, did God give me the original dream so that I could someday be fulfilled in this plan I could never have understood 30 years ago, this life of a homeschooling momma that was so foreign to me then?  Could God have wanted me to strive for that dream so as to make this the result?  Or was the original dream just something out of my humanity, something I came up with that amounted to nothing because it wasn't His plan? 

I don't know.  It seems strange to place a dream in a small child's heart, knowing that it will never come to pass.  Yet, I don't know that it wasn't a big part of getting me to this stage in my life.  I do know that God has a plan.  His plan is to bring me to His expected end, fulfill His hopes in my life.  If I entrust that to Him, what difference does the rest of it make?

What dreams have you found God using differently than you imagined He would?