God-sized Dreams

Where Dreams Set Sail

Everything We Experience is Building Our Dreams

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building dreams Laurie WallinEverything about us has purpose when it comes to finding and following our dreams. The music we love. The things that freak us out. Our favorite hobbies. What we think about. The classes we took during college. The summer job that had nothing to do with anything (or so we thought). And even that weirdo we dated in high school.

If you’re like me, you might be thinking, Yeah, right! How exactly could all those parts of my life be connected, or matter in real life? I asked myself that question one night years ago as I started to write. It began with a blank screen and a new blog.

Everything was in pieces around me (literally—my house had flooded a few months earlier). My youngest, just a year old, was having unexplained seizures. We had just adopted our two foster daughters that summer, and something was clearly amiss with the older one. The mental health diagnoses wouldn’t become clear until later, but regardless, I wasn’t sure we could go through with the adoption. In fact, I didn’t think I could go through much more, period.

That season seemed to be another random, disconnected part of my life to stash away in a locked box in my mental cellar. Right along with my penchant for eating rock salt from the sidewalk when I was a preschooler.

Around that same time I had an assignment for a class: to draw a timeline of my life, looking at the past for where God had been, and ahead for where God might be leading.

Three Questions That Help Connect the Details to Our Dreams:

  • What words might appropriately describe my life over time?
  • What experiences have I had, and what have I gained from them?
  • What ideas and experiences inspire and call to me?

After I had done this, I stepped back mentally to catch the panorama of the “forest through the trees.” To my surprise, words and themes were repeated again and again: coach, teacher, inspirer, supporter. In my role as the oldest sibling growing up. As a teacher’s assistant in middle school. As swim team captain in high school and swim coach afterward. As a resident advisor in charge of helping college freshmen adjust on campus. Even the photography studio job had a place in my bigger purpose, as I had learned how to turn my eye for a subject’s uniqueness into a photo that helped them see it too.

It suddenly became clear: I was a coach, an encourager, a person who serves as a scaffold for others to grow, heal, run after their own dreams.

Each aspect, each moment in life is another stone that builds our God-sized dreams. (<====Click To Tweet)

Maybe we share similar storylines, meanderings of hearts pursuing God’s visions in us through corridor after corridor. I’ll bet some of your journey feels random and disconnected—impossible to fit into a sense of purpose or unified theme. But every single part of the journey matters for where we are headed. Every role and season play a part to build our dreams into priceless and unique gifts to the world… legacies for those we love and those we’ve not yet met.

We can’t see the full story now. But we’re walking it already. Keep going, friend. All of this matters.

Shared By: Laurie Wallin

Adapted from her book, Why Your Weirdness Is Wonderful

When Following Dreams Means Facing Past Hurts

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white bud sunlight Laurie Wallin God Sized DreamsWarning: This post contains sensitive themes about childhood sexual abuse.

As we sail toward God-Sized dreams, many of us will face times when moving forward means a detour through what anchors us to the past. Will we let God take the wheel and sail us through the needed healing?

The memory didn’t surface until about 5 years into my marriage. Certain smells and textures brought flickers of images. Images of sunshine through a playhouse window. Of pine walls. Of tan indoor-outdoor carpeting.

Then the dreams. Being in a room with the window too high to see through. Light streaming in mottled patches through the tree outside, light so beautiful I want to reach through the window and touch it. I must be about three, I think to myself as I wake from the warm imagery.

In another of the dreams, I’m taller now. I see out the window into this beautiful back yard. I turn and look away from the window and there’s this sweet little girl, a mess of sunny blonde hair, bright blue eyes, a dimple that punctuates her smile. And those cheeks—little apples that I want to smother in kisses. She looks so much like my youngest daughter. 

She must be about three, I think to myself as I wake.

I’m sitting on a city bus years later. It’s a hobby I love—a few hours away from the family I now have, to find perspective and see the world. I crave the sunshine through the large bus windows. Joy fills me, being able to watch landscapes flow by instead of missing them because I’m behind the wheel.

The bus turns down a street lined with trees—tall ones, maybe oak or fir—the sun pours over me in mottled patches through the bus window. And my dreams find each other. She was three years old. She was on the floor and couldn’t get up to see out the window. He’d said, “Stay low. This is our special game and we don’t want anyone to see.”

She was me.

Last weekend, I parked in front of the now-empty dirt lot where my grandparents’ home once stood. But it wasn’t their house I needed to see. I turned down the street—I knew where his house was, even 37 years later.

My mom walked up to me, stood close as the house and I looked at each other. Tears streamed hot down cheeks. Memories filled my mind—the boy, the rough playhouse floor, the words “You like this game. I know you do.”

I feel like maybe this time as I recall the memories—here in this place—I might drown.

Behind the house, the fir tree that had comforted me in moments stolen by that boy, reached high above even where I stood at street level. It seemed to look me in the eye and reassure me, “See, little one? We’ve both survived.”

I stood a little taller as I looked back, and whispered to that magnificent tree, Thank you. Thank you for comforting me as I looked out the playhouse window from the floor where it would happen. Thank you for sharing the sunlight, bird songs, whispered wind reminders that this would not be the end of the story.

That moment connected my then to my now. After years of nighttime dreams that made no sense. After wondering if I was crazy, if it had really happened, and why it was always so hard to let people close. After convincing myself the past didn’t matter and today’s dreams had nothing to do with yesterday’s pain. I finally let God take me there, to the street, to his house. Looking at it I knew it really had been true. The hurt had happened. The wound had changed me, closed part of my soul.

Standing in front of that house, waves of emotion washed over me. Many moments passed.

Then, quietly, imperceptibly, a calm swelled up inside and quieted the storm. As if Jesus restated his words from long ago, “Peace, be still” (Mark 4:39).

The tears took a new form: my own pain mixed with growing grief over what must have been true in that boy’s life for him to do what he did to a young girl. Compassion pressed in as the Dream Giver stood holding me in the waves.

After years of struggle with this issue, I could admit the extent of my loss and extend forgiveness to him in the same moment. In the exchange, an anchor lifted and I knew the God-Sized dreams that have already unfolded in my life were now free to sail farther.

Did that moment in front of the house wrap the experience up tidy in a bow? Not even close. There will be more to process, I know. I also know our stories aren’t the same—and I would never presume to understand the deep beauty or brokenness of your life.

But, friend, we can’t press boldly into new dreams if a bit of our soul stays anchored in pain. (<====Click to Tweet) We’ve got to be willing to let God steer us where we will be most whole. I pray that as storms from the past rise, we’d each allow God to take the helm, turn us back for a moment, and in so doing, give us power to press stronger into dreams He longs for us to live.

Shared By: Laurie Wallin

Finding a Mentor for Your Dream

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finding mentors - Laurie WallinWe’re all about dreaming here: Listening for God’s vision, taking first steps, living dreams out, and how to make it through the bumps in the road or the long waits on the way.

As we dream, there’s one more crucial piece: we need mentoring relationships. (<====Click to Tweet)

Before we get into this topic, I have an admission: I’m a movie junkie. I’m the one in the line on opening night for any movie with a decent metacritic.com score.

There’s a new movie coming out soon—“The Intern” with Robert DeNiro and Anne Hathaway. She’s a high-powered dreamer and founder of a big company in a big city. As part of their give-back-to-the-world company culture, she authorizes a “senior internship” program designed not for college or high school seniors, but seniors in life.

Enter DeNiro as the intern, who, according to the preview, brings a sense of class and experience to his slouchy shirt-untucked hipster coworkers. But the best part—and what matters for us as dreamers—is that he becomes a trusted mentor and friend to Hathaway, who finds she doesn’t have to be an island to succesfully achieve her dreams.

It’s a sweet premise. And a tough subject.

Why is forming mentoring relationships so hard?

  1. Seasoned people (50’s and over) wonder what they have to offer. I have a friend who has led women’s ministries, housed countless college kids and mentored them in life and through school, marriage and now parenting. And after all this time she still falls prey to our society’s youth-worshipping culture and wonders whether her experience is relevant to younger women these days.
  2. Young people (40’s and under) don’t know how to pursue mentoring. We are so wrapped up in the daily grind—getting the kids ready for school, the laundry done, the dog walked and the work deadlines fulfilled—that we barely have (make) time pursuing friendships with our age-peers, let alone women in a different season of life.

How can both groups bridge the gap and invite dream-mentoring relationships?

1. Realize we need each other.

Because we really do. Look at Paul and Timothy, or Elijah and Elisha in scripture. They needed each other—the more seasoned one to bring a sense of continued purpose and value as they share their wisdom and experiences, and the younger to gain confidence and feel the support of someone who’s trod the path before. The learning and experiencing goes both ways and we both have much to give one another.

2. Have realistic expectations.

Not every relationship is going to be a good fit for one, the other or even both people. Time, personalities, spiritual values, and temperament are all variables. In my search for mentors over the past 20 years, I’ve begun four different relationships and they’ve all had their own unique upsides and downsides.

My first mentor, originally my high school yearbook advisor, ignited and invested in my writing. Perhaps he might have been a mentor still, but his life ended in a tragic accident that took him far too young.

The next two were women, with similar ministry callings and hearts to serve—the first got disrupted when I adopted my two older girls. The second was just not a good personality fit. The one I have now, like DeNiro to Hathaway in The Intern, is an older man who is a fit like nothing I’ve had before. Part brother, part father, part advisor, friend, and coach, it’s such a gift to have someone who challenges and encourages me regularly!

3. Give it a try.

Strike up a conversation at church. Send a message to that ministry friend on Facebook—younger or older—let her know what you appreciate about her and see what happens. Ask a colleague for help on a project and see where the conversation leads. Notice a younger mom at the park where your older kids soccer game happens, and ask how life is going with her much-littler ones.

“I wonder if we’re not all a lot better for each other than we previously thought. . . .I wonder how many people are withholding the love they could provide because they secretly believe they have fatal flaws.” —Donald Miller, Scary Close

What might be a good first step for you to invite a mentoring relationship this week or this summer?

Shared By: Laurie Wallin

Two Keys To Beat Discouragement When Dreams Get Hard

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One of my life-long dreams had always been to adopt children—to help them heal and know they’re loved.

Ten years ago, after 18 months in the adoptive application process, this dream became reality for my husband and me. We’d dreamed of loving children with God’s huge heart for the orphan and the widow. We’d imagined moments when they snuggled into our arms, trusting they were safe and precious. We’d planned adventures and outings with our beautiful growing family. The craft materials for scrapbooks of their life and God stories sat in tubs in our kitchen for when those creative moments arose.

You know those kinds of dreams, right? The save-the-world kind? The Mother Theresa-esque ones, where life unfolds like black and white National Geographic photos of precious, wide-eyed, dirt-smudged orphans cradling bowls of Compassion International-offered porridge in their grateful hands?

Yeah, that’s not what raising orphans is like. Just in case you’re wondering.

It’s a little more like going in for open heart surgery and realizing, as you drift under the anesthesia, that this surgery will slice you open, change your heart, and leave the wound open forever.

Over ten years, I’ve begun to learn how to lean on God with my gaping heart wound. I have two foster-adopted daughters who are middle-school aged on the outside and varying levels of delayed mental and emotional development on the inside. One has epilepsy and a slew of other health issues that it took 8 years of fighting doctors over misdiagnoses to get treated properly. I also have two biological daughters, who have spent their lives receiving a shared 30% of my energy and time as a mom for the sake of a dream they never had.

Why share such grumpy-black-cloud details on a site meant to encourage you in your dreams?

Because dreams don’t look like National Geographic photos. They look like the moments before photos we take for Christmas cards. The ones where two of our kids are biting each other and we’ve had an argument with our spouse that ran right up to the second before the photographer said “smile!”

How can we keep from getting discouraged when our picture-perfect dream looks nothing like the picture? In the ten years since beginning my journey as an adoptive mom, here are two keys that have helped me beat discouragement when dreams become reality:

Focus on what sets you free. Do you know how many times a day I internally state the first sentence in this post? As many times as there are attachment struggles, behavior challenges, health issues, therapy appointments, stares from onlookers, and conversations with people who need to tell me how my kids should act at their age. No matter how stressed out or discouraged I may feel about some detail in our real-life dream of adoption, when I think of the original calling, the Dream Giver’s power surges inside me and gets me through it. Scripture says the truth shall set us free, and I know in the deepest area of my heart that this dream is truly of God.

Speaking truth restores freedom in us as we pursue our dreams through tough times. {<===Tweet This}

Trust the risk. Thousands of people have seen that National Geographic photo, forgotten it and gone on with their lives. When we say yes to the dream God gives us, we step into the picture and choose the 3-dimensional reality of a life closer to the heart of God than we’d ever know had our hearts remained safe. My risk has led me to help children once labeled “failure to thrive” and “unadoptable” blossom into young women with gifts that reach this world in ways I’d never imagined. I can’t always see how God will get us through darker moments or seasons. But I can say, having lived inside the photo for a decade, that even the most powerful photos can’t capture the real-life joy of dreams, or of becoming who the dream makes us through it all.

Shared By: Laurie Wallin

Photo Credit: BigTallGuy

What Steers Your Dream?

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boat steering 1

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It was junior year of college. Cold. Rainy. Probably a lot like today. Many of the students in the dorm had left for the weekend and I remained. As the Resident Advisor, it was my job to be the last to go, and I liked the quiet.

Except that it wasn’t quiet. Not in my spirit anyway.

That “what am I going to do with my life?” question was at it again, taunting me.

As I wondered what God had to say on the matter, that night I came upon Proverbs 31:8-9:

Open your mouth for the speechless,
In the cause of all who are appointed to die.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
And plead the cause of the poor and needy.

The words grabbed my soul. For over 20 years they’ve never let go.

I knew, right then, that I would devote myself to the freedom of those who were hurting, unheard, unseen, dying. I’d found my dream rudder. (<==== Click to Tweet)

Problem was, I didn’t know HOW that calling would materialize. Would I end up going into international missions? Continuing along my then-path of becoming a doctor? Go to law school?

Yes.

Well, not yes, explicitly. But yes to what was behind all those careers: setting people free.

  • The missionary: bringing relief from poverty of body and spirit.
  • The doctor: freedom from illness or unhealthy patterns.
  • The lawyer: freedom from misrepresentation and injustice.

I didn’t end up doing any of the jobs I thought of that night, but this passage has guided my choices through each step of the dream. It’s what drove my choice to adopt two kids from foster care. It pressed me to become a teacher, which ultimately revealed to me the calling of speaking and coaching those students’ parents. It fuels me through times when raising my two daughters with special needs is almost more than I can bear. It steers me toward coaching and speaking with people who need someone to set them free from thoughts and behaviors that keep them stuck.

It’s what led me to write the book that just released—Get Your Joy Back: Banishing Resentment and Reclaiming Confidence in Your Special Needs Family. A book built while navigating storm swells just about every day of the process.

The one thing that got me through the challenge of fulfilling this dream—this book—was the scripture above. One part relentless taskmaster, one part inspiring life-verse, it steered me through hours of engaging the painful stories of other parents like me to help us all find our way out of resentment and into joy. It kept me going when I was tired. It pushed me through writer’s block. It called to me when I was scared of the depth this dream required I plumb in my own heart.

Rudders do that for us. In life and in the pursuit of our God-sized dreams. They steer us through the waves of doubt, fatigue, anxiety, and discouragement. 

But a rudder’s only as helpful as the material it’s made of. Mine? It’s life-giving God-words.

What’s yours?

Do you have a guiding word from God that keeps you going in the right direction? I’d love to hear it!

Shared by: Laurie Wallin

Photo Credit: Carla Wosniak

Getting Back on Track after Mistakes

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how we handle mistakes_laurie wallinRunning is one place dreaming happens for me. Not because I’m a good runner, mind you, but because it’s a place my mind is clear of all the to-dos and emotional clutter of life.

One day, when it looked as though a recent rain had stopped, I packed up one of my daughters and our dog to go run around a nearby lake. Prior to that day, I thought the only negative about running there was the gnats. Turns out that wasn’t the case. But I did learn a few things:

  1. Dogs don’t respond well to having rain dumped upon them.
  2. Or to being bombarded with half-inch hailstones.
  3. Or to running around a lake with no shelter when #1 or #2 occurs.
  4. And neither do eight-year-old daughters on bikes.

Oops!

Whether you’ve made a blunder like this or not, you’ve most certainly made a mistake or two in life. We all do. Some are minor and irritating. Others are devastating to us or those we love. In the midst of those debacles, how will we handle them?

First, face them. Take responsibility for whatever you’ve done. Otherwise one mistake multiplies into two. It’s hard to own up to what we do, especially when we struggle with insecurity and guilt. But when we take responsibility for our choices and actions, we demonstrate wisdom and open the door to opportunities to reconnect with whomever  we’ve adversely affected. Because we more quickly make things right, we don’t waste time floundering in denial. And even better, our honesty helps us avoid making the same mistakes again later on.

Second, learn from them. Mistakes are great teachers. Many brilliant people staunchly assert that we learn more from them than from our successes! Think about your more recent flubs, gaffes, misjudgments, or bloopers. What might they be trying to teach you? How can you grow in light of that knowledge? What will you do differently next time? Be careful here to avoid thoughts that seem like learning but really represent shutting down to people and opportunities—a resolution like “I’ll never trust anyone again.” 

Third, recognize the value of experience. A lot of mistakes occur in the process of trying something new or experimenting with a fresh approach to a familiar issue. Be courageous and decide you’re going to relish the experience of learning from your mistakes. Even if the outcome at the time was truly painful or even catastrophic, there are probably precious jewels of experience you’ve gained through the experience. As a friend recently pointed out, “Erasing [all our mistakes] would just leave a blank space—that’s not very interesting.” So treasure the results of your errors. And give yourself a little credit for trudging through the work it took to find the bright spot. This process contributes to making you who you are: a unique, beautiful creation God loves with all his Father heart.

Fourth, move on. There’s nothing to gain from wallowing in our missteps except a loss of forward motion. And fearing our next mistake can paralyze us. As Elbert Hubbard put it, “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” Decide to walk through the mistakes. To learn from your goofs. To absorb the experience and move on. 

We can spend a lifetime stewing over mistakes, beating ourselves up, or we can cut ourselves some slack. {<=== Tweet This}

As we learn from mistakes, remember the invisible battle around us, and learn about the weaknesses that help shape our quirks and strengths, we’re opening the door to more of God’s wonderful in us and the unfolding of our God Sized Dreams!

(adapted from Laurie’s book, Why Your Weirdness Is Wonderful)

Shared by: Laurie Wallin

How to Know Your Dream Enough to Recognize Its Counterfeit

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Not every opportunity related to our dreams is authentic.

You know how a banker can recognize counterfeit money, don’t you? Here’s a hint: it’s not because they study the counterfeits.

People who work with money know a counterfeit because they’ve memorized the real deal. They know the smell, weight, look, feel and everything else about an authentic bill or coin.

Money’s not the only thing of value that’s vulnerable to counterfeiting. . . dreams are too. The cost of a dream’s counterfeit is far greater than that of money. And we’ve got an enemy with a vested interest in peddling the counterfeit, because, Scripture says, “He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, . . . he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44 NIV).

How to Know Your Dream Enough to Recognize Its Counterfeit

  1. Know your strengths. Know what you naturally do well, love to do well, and how to use them best. What you love and are gifted at are part of the roadmap to your God-inspired dreams. The better you know your strengths, the easier it is to recognize choices that would drag you off course from your dreams. (For this, I recommend Holley Gerth’s book, You’re Already Amazing to understand your strengths and gifts, and my book, Why Your Weirdness Is Wonderful, to find out how your weirdest quirks are your strengths too).
  2. Remain in God’s Word. This connects us to the rich history and example of believers through the millennia. . . both the ones who loved God and others well, and those who didn’t. Being in the Word daily keeps our spirit healthy and our spiritual eyes trained on the absolute North of God’s truth in a world of sliding scales and widespread feel-good dream counterfeits.
  3. Submit to God’s Spirit. Listen to that voice deep inside—the one that is congruent with the body of Scripture and what you know to be true of God’s heart and plans. Look for the evidence of the fruit of the Spirit (see Galations 5:22-23) and stick with the directions that line up with ALL of them, not just a convenient few.

This week, I was reminded of all three of the ideas above (especially the last one!) when a door opened to what seemed to be a next step in my dream. I’ve been involved in ministry at my 4-year old CMA church since its beginning and this week, my pastor expressed desire to help me take the next step toward official denominational leadership.

At first, I was excited. But over days that followed, as I began to do what we do with dreams—speak it to those in my inner circle and start to hear it out loud—something wasn’t setting well in my heart. I couldn’t put a finger on it. I prayed, and read, and listened to the Lord for direction.

It was a mentor of mine who helped me see it. . . this step, while exciting, was a distraction from what God’s given ME as a dream. Maybe it’s part of someone else’s, but not mine. 

To take that step, at least right now, takes my time away from writing, right in the middle of the opportunity to write my next book. It puts me in the middle of a doctrinal argument that this mama of still-at-home kids with special needs can’t put adequate time into right now. It looks like the next step, but in my deeper heart I know it’s a step backward in the journey God’s got me on today.

If I were to take that step, it could weaken the dream God’s birthed in my heart. It could devalue it.

A dream devalued is a life of less. . . less of God’s power in us, less of God’s presence in the world. { <=== Tweet This}

Let’s not let the enemy foist a counterfeit on us, fellow dreamers!

Shared by: Laurie Wallin

{photo credit: kozini / 123RF Stock Photo}

When Dreams Become Messy Reality

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Messy Dreams Laurie Wallin

If you’ve courted God-sized dreams for any length of time, you’ve discovered how messy dreams can get.

One of my dreams as a mom (who happens to also be a work-from-home author and life coach) is to be truly present with my kids during the summer. Sounds like a good plan, right?

Until the moment a couple weeks ago when that real life dream splattered all over my kids and back yard.

My kids sat in their play clothes, wearing interesting configurations of repurposed shopping bags as protective gear for our summer activity that day: tye-dyeing t-shirts.

As they finished slopping dye around the back yard, getting it on everything including their hair (I have punk-rocker daughters for a while until it fades out…) I was itching to spray them down with the garden hose. I reached for it, turned the knob, and SNAP. The pipe broke.

Water spouting, kids ready to move on to another messy project, me panicking as they started touching the door, getting dots of dye on everything (and did I mention the water spouting out of the pipe from my house?!)

My dream of quality summer time became almost too messy to cope with!

The rest of the day was spent with no running water. We used a box of old baby wipes to get the kids in some sort of you-can-enter-the-house-and-touch-stuff shape. Dishes never got done that day. My nerves frazzled in proportion to the amount of trips to Home Depot it took to get the right parts to fix the pipe.

Somewhere in the first 30 minutes of that messy dream moment, though, God whispered into my crazy: Remember the dream? The one where you spend time making memories with your kids during the summer? The memories are being made right now. In the mess, covered in tye-dye, with no running water. The dream’s unfolding right now. Don’t miss it just because it’s a mess, Laurie. (<==== Click to tweet)

3  Reframes for When Dreams Become Messy Reality

  1. What’s the dream, really? For me, it was quality time and a craft with my kids. Did that happen? Yes. Was the rest of the pipe repair, water issue, messy kids, stress about messy kids the point? No. The dream was the point. The rest was leftovers.
  2. What would this dream look like? In my mind, it looked like crafts with no mess. Like the picture on the tye-dye kit box, with the smiling, immaculate children who aren’t fighting with each other about who gets which bowl of dye first. But what about the dream that was deeper in my heart? It looked like laughter, fun, silliness, art, connecting with my kids, creating things together in the sunshine. Did all those things happen that day, burst pipe, stained fingerprints on my doorpost and all? Yep!
  3. Where’s Jesus in this mess? Peter reminded us of this reframing idea when his dream-of-the-moment found him sinking in the sea swell. Scripture records Peter saying what we all do in some form when the dream-mess starts to overwhelm: “Lord, save me!” (Matt 14:30). Out stretched the hand of the One who can make sense of the mess—or, at least, calm our messy hearts in it all—and up above the mess rose Peter.

Like Peter, when we ask that last question, we feel God’s hand grabbing ours, reminding us we’re not alone in the craziness. That with God’s help and some refocusing on the original dream, we can realize our dreams are unfolding right now, no matter how much of a mess they seem to be.

Shared by Laurie Wallin

Photo Credit: Nexusplexus / 123RF Stock Photo