This post is the first part of a longer piece I wrote about my life and dreams. It was too long for one of my newspaper columns and I chose not to publish it in three parts at that time. I'm going to do so today and Friday this week and the last part next Tuesday. Just in case someone's interest is strong enough to want to read all of it! Most of the events in it have appeared in one form or another in my memoir, Eight Miles of Muddy Road or in other columns and posts.
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I always knew God gives dreams. The Bible
is full of examples. In the Old Testament there is Abraham, told in a dream to
leave his home country; his son, Joseph, dreaming his brothers would bow down
to him; and the dream God gave Pharaoh and Joseph’s fellow prisoners. Jacob,
who dreamed of a ladder to heaven. In the New Testament as well we find Joseph,
Mary’s husband and his dream of an angel telling him to take his family to
Egypt and then again when they could return.
Are dreams from God today? If He gives us
dreams while we sleep, are the dreams and longings in our hearts when we’re
awake also from Him, too? I think the answer to both is – yes. Not all, of
course. Sometimes it might be the cheese and pepperoni on the pizza we ate late
in the evening. If we’re granted one dream, is that it? Or will God bless us
with others? In my own life the answer to that question is also ‘yes.’
A mother, grandmother and great
grandmother now and can look back at a life filled with dream fulfillments, even
though at the time I might not have fully realized it. We humans are so prone
to attribute the realization of our deeply held desires as due to good luck,
hard work, or just the way things worked out.
I grew up dirt poor in rural Georgia. That
I would ever fly in one of the airplanes I saw high above the cotton field was
not a possibility even in my constant daydreams. But fifty years later my
younger sister and I flew across the ocean as part of a group which toured
Israel and also spent two nights in Rome, Italy. Forced early retirement from
the job God provided twenty years earlier and a generous severance pay package
made the dream trip possible.
I dreamed that I’d grow up, strike out on
my own, marry, become a mother. Time passed, I met a young man from Tennessee,
we married, and God blessed us with a beautiful daughter. Amid the ups and downs
of marriage, family, and job I always knew God was the Giver of answers to my
dreams. But I didn’t consciously turn my dreams over to Him. And I had several
that I never, ever mentioned to anybody.
My older sister had dropped out of school
and worked to help provide for our family of ten. I longed for college after
high school graduation, but instead I found a job and also contributed to the
family. Many years later came an opportunity for college, though I finished the
last class needed for my degree after retirement.
My husband loved to tell of my reaction
when he told friends I’d earned my college ‘diploma.’
I’d quickly correct him. “It’s a college
degree.” God is indeed the fulfiller of dreams, but not necessarily on our
timetable.
I learned to read when I started school at
five years old and immediately fell in love with books. That love only grew
stronger as I grew up. Sometimes a fleeting thought that I might write
something myself that would be published crept into my mind. No, too
far-fetched. What did I have to say that anyone would want to publish? Or read.
Over the years the thoughts of writing
didn’t go away and I finally bought a used Underwood typewriter. I sent out a
few things. Which were rejected. I worked on a novel, still unfinished.
Sometime before my trip to Israel I had
submitted a story to a small magazine. When we returned to the States we landed
in Atlanta and I called my husband in Tennessee.
We chatted a few minutes and then he told
me, “A woman called, an editor. Something about wanting to publish your story.”
It didn’t actually seem real to me until a
couple of months later I held the magazine in my hand, my name and story title
listed in the table of contents.
(next-part 2)
