I am having one of the Martin Luther King Jr. moments as I write this, I have a dream … or I had a dream.
A dream that I could put together 80,000 words in a manner that would speak to the hearts of women, of that mom who feels like she is struggling to get by, muddled in a world that tells her it is offensive to breastfeed and shameful to formula feed, in a time when women are expected to chase careers as though they don’t have children while raising children as if they don’t need to work. A time when it is archaic to respect your husband and submit as a wife, when bra burning and masculine obliterating politics take centre stage and no one seems to care for the children.
Two years ago … maybe three, I decided that I had a story to share, a culmination of experiences that MIGHT encourage, inspire or just remind another mom that she wasn’t alone.
I was so passionate and full of pizzaz for this goal that I started writing daily, mapping out chapters, flushing out thoughts and even tracking the number of words I penned in hopes that I would assemble 80,000 words in a meaningful string of sentences.
I started writing it on a laptop I was borrowing from work while I was on – yet another – maternity leave, a laptop that I would eventually return without having transferred all those thoughts, the feelings, the inspiration and the courage I had in that fleeting moment.
Do I think that it would be an award winning book that would have been snatched up be every publisher … I hoped!
But I regret stopping because it built in and fed the fear that under lies every bold dream we have. That fear that we aren’t enough, that we don’t have the skill or expertise needed to make a mark, that this too will never work.
I regret stopping because I quit on myself, again. Because there may have been magic in those words, in the thoughts and feelings that were returned to my company and wiped out a year and a half later when I finally chased my calling to be a stay at home mom.
So, this year, this is the year where dreams come to be chased, to be prayed over and purposely pursued. This is not the place where dreams come to die.
This year is fuelled by a mother who wants more, not just for her family but FROM herself. More of that “go get ’em” spirit that had her finishing her CPA-CA designation straight out of university, before she had a full time job or any real understanding of what possibilities lay ahead.
This year is for growth, refinement, and chasing the impossible. Because I am certain that those crazy and outlandish dreams we have that burn deep within our soul, that excite us if we ponder them for even a moment … those impossible for US dreams, were planted by someone exceedingly more capable than ourselves, someone for whom nothing is impossible, and the moment we allow ourselves to admit that we have a purpose and a calling higher than the ordinary and that we need His love, grace, and endurance to run the race set ahead of us … that is where the magic happens.
This is the year for that!
The year to chase dreams way outside of our own capacity so that in running this race, with every step, with every moment of refining, with ever success we come across, we can live to glorify His name.
And isn’t that the reason we are running?
