I Have This Small Dream

I have this small dream… to write a book.  Not just a few random rambling posts on a blog I don’t think anyone reads, but to write a real book, a fiction book, you know the kind with chapters and amazing covers and a little bio on the inside quarter sleeve. 

But the physical aspect of the book isn’t the reason I want to write it, I want to write it to create something new… something bold and vivid, and a tiny bit edgy, all wrapped up neatly in page after page of black and white type.  The challenge, the magic, the draw to create something in black and white written form that is taken and allowed to become something bright, colorful, imaginative, and real within the mind of the reader excites me.  What's even more exciting – the fact that every single person who would read it would create and cast their very own inner movie of characters and mental visual images played out.

I have had this dream for years now… I have the plot, I have the characters, I have the outline all neatly in this little filing cabinet in my mind.  And... I have a three mile long list of excuses for not writing it. 

The main one – is that I know it will mess.me.up.  I know how I can get when I am writing.  Not how I can get... how I do get.  It chooses when and where, it overtakes my thoughts and can leave me utterly worthless to all other people, tasks, and jobs until those words have left the crazed confines of my mind through the click, click, clicking of my fingers as I pull those words and images from inside out.

A second main reason – is that I don’t actually know how to write a book.  And beyond that, I keep hearing all the little voices in my head simply telling me not to waste my time even trying because I wouldn’t finish it, and no one would read it anyway if I did. Those voices seem to be speaking louder to me than the ones telling me to just dive in and go for it.

Until this moment, I have basically uttered this to no one.  About two month ago I casually attempted to bring it up to my husband, and that same day I mentioned it in an email to a close friend.  I got a whole lot of crazy daring for whatever reason that day.  I actually allowed myself to think about it, to put voice and words to it, to simply entertain it.

I honestly don’t know why these are the words that I am being compelled to write, to share, to type, to confess right now.  I haven’t uttered this out loud to anyone, so why now am I deciding to just put this out there on my blog??  Oh yes, because it’s still relatively safe on my blog because no one is reading it ;-)

But in all seriousness, I can't help but wonder what God has in store with this current bunny trail of momentary crazy coursing through me.  And yet, if it's been in me for years, how momentary actually is it??  I think perhaps He's been whispering this for a while, but I have just not been listening very closely...  Maybe I am still years and years away from ever opening that blank document and actually starting... Maybe I'll never even start... maybe I'll start and never finish... maybe I'll start, finish, and it will be horrible... maybe I'll start, finish, and... well, who knows...

If our words remain unspoken and silent, then no one other than ourselves will ever know where we've actually set the bar for our expectations and hopeful accomplishments.  We justify it by saying if it doesn't happen, we're the only ones that will know, we're the only ones who can tell us we're a failure, we're the only ones who will know the the dream fell short and never came to be.

And there will also be no one else to walk beside us, to encourage us, to help us, to see us, to believe in us.

Every dream has to start somewhere, every dream has to have a tiny seed planted deep within the fertile depths of our very souls.  Every dream needs the fire fanned to grow, intensify, magnify, blaze through to the surface.  Every dream needs to be grasped, hoped for, believed in, breathed into being, grown into fruition.  Every dream needs to be granted the opportunity to evolve from nothing into something, from within our minds to within our hands.

So there you have it... there is a transparent little confession of a small dream that is residing deep within me right now.  I have no idea what I'll do with this silly little writers dream I'm hold within still closed hands, but perhaps it's just time to put voice to it, put it out there for someone other than just myself to know.

Perhaps it's time to merely start to carefully flame the fire around that quietly planted and well hidden little seed of possibility.  I've learned that this is simply how God sometimes works in my life... in little whispers that turn into small dreams, which can cause big waves, and sometimes even ginormous jumps of faith.

Whether this becomes nothing or this becomes one of those crazy leaps, today I shall merely turn my closed palm upward, and slowly... ever so slowly... simply loosen my fingers from their tight grip of all things unknown, slowly allowing them to open, and I will merely stand back and watch what awaits, watch what wonders just might come to land upon that open palm...

Tonight I simply turn and open, palm silently outstretched.

Watch, and wait, and trust... areas I am not familiar or comfortable in.  I'm an all-or-nothing, go-big-or-go-home gal... patience, perseverance, endurance, possible and probable failure... phew big words that are often better to avoid all together than to take on with a vengeance.

I have found it's always easier to contently remain still and silent, merely thinking about our hopes and dreams of what if's and some day's.  It's something entirely else when we decide to stand and perhaps start the process of actually closing the gap between us and our dreams.

Don't stop daring to dream.  Don't sell yourself short on what you are capable of.  Don't consider yourself a failure if all your dreams are not seized, if all your hopes and goals are not attainable or unachievable at the level in which you placed them.  Every dream is placed within us for a purpose, for a plan in the grand design of our lives.

Some dreams are meant to be, some are not.  Some are meant to be fully accomplished and are entirely attainable, some are merely meant to be the starting point, the driving force, the instigation simply needed to be the bridge, the gap, the launching pad to that which we are simply supposed to do next.  A first next step in our journey on the path of our lives.

Listen to the whispers, listen to the desires you carry deep within you.  Let's entertain them, pray over them, give them a voice, and allow them to help us excel, grow, shine, connect, change.  I'm pretty sure there will be more than a few amazing lessons and people found along the way in our quest to attain, accomplish, and conquer.

I have this small dream... to write a book.  What's yours?

{ Next blog post "Already Half Way Through Summer" HERE }
{ Previous blog post "When I Finally Quit Quitting" HERE }