Guest Post from T.J.
Well, while Jenn is away I’m honored to guest post on her blog! She is a wonderful friend… My name is T.J and Jenn and I have been friends since high school. T.J.’s blog Here is my God Sized Dream post- It’s lengthy, but I hope you will enjoy and your heart will be blessed.
I use to think that if a person was living a God Size Dream, their life would be wrapped up in a nice neat bow like a hallmark movie or a 90s family sitcom. I envisioned that if one were living a God Sized dream that would be the point when all life’s conflicts would be resolved. That is how Hollywood paints the picture right? The guy always picks the right girl, the argument is solved by the time credits roll. The villain is always captured in the movies. That’s what I think of when I hear the word dream. As a young girl I took the plastic ring I won from one of those toy machines, and slipped it on my finger pretending it was my wedding ring. I also dreamed of being a mom and pretended my stuffed animals were my children. Why yes, I did just admit that. It never occurred to me, until I was older that this life path might be very different than I planned, since I was born with a neurological disorder called Cerebral Palsy which has required me to physically dependent on others: with limited mobility and being wheelchair bound. I pushed that dream far away. As the years passed by and I got into middle school, I discovered a new Good-sized dream. I fell in love with written words and began writing poetry about my faith. I loved how people connected with my writing.
Do you remember how in the Bible, God gave Joseph a literal dream that would years later become Joseph’s reality? “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.
Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.
When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.” Genesis 37:3-10Text here
What later verses tell us is that this prophetic dream came true, however not before Joseph faced being sold into slavery by his brothers, false accusations of rape, false imprisonment, and being forgotten by those he served. I’m sure all this wasn’t what Joseph envisioned in his God-sized dream, yet many times in the story we see that as the dream unfolded, Joseph prospered right where he was. He ministered to people in whatever setting, God placed him in, despite disappointment and injustice. He even reconciled with his brothers who hated him. Like Joseph, my God-sized dream has unfolded differently than I expected. I am not married at now 30 years old, and I don’t have a house full of children, but God has fulfilled my desire to nature and protect children and families through my volunteering with my local pregnancy Care Center. I love that God allows me to open my heart for children and families. He has been so faithful. I’m not a published author at this time, however God keeps using the talent of my writing to inspire others, and that is a far greater dream fulfilled than having my name printed upon the cover of a book. It is after all God’s story! Sometimes it’s hard to surrender our own vision for our lives, and embrace God’s instead. We will always find that as we daily live out our God-Sized dream it is God who knows the dream best, God knows my story, and He knows yours, too even if it is on the other side of eternity His plans will always amaze and surpass our own. Isa. 55:9
I want to encourage you not to give up on your dream, because it looks different than you imagined. As Christians we know that when all is said and done, we are promised victory through Christ! The journey, no matter how rocky is part of the God-sized dream!
