Feeling emotional about Delaney's birthday tomorrow I pulled out her baby scrapbook after I tucked the girls in, and this page (click on the photo to see it up close) made me cry buckets. Lately Delaney is full of conversation about her future and tells me she wants to be a "dolphin doctor" when she grows up. If she gets fired from that she wants to be a clothes designer, and if she gets fired from that, a vet. (I'm not sure why all the terminations.) Oh yes, and she wants to live in New York City. I began to tell her she couldn't be a dolphin doctor in New York but would have to live at the beach. She set me straight by reminding me she could work at an aquarium in the city. I love that nothing is impossible in her world. The following is from her baby scrapbook as well, and it too struck a chord with me tonight.dream big
i hope you'll dream a thousand and one dreams for your life . . . but, remember, dreams don't come to those who sit and wait for them - you have to go after them. i would be foolish to wish your every dream to come true; that would be setting you up for disappointment. in the past, i've dreamed some dreams that i now thank God didn't come true. now i trust my heavenly father to know which of my dreams are best for me . . . and that's exactly what i wish for you. dream big, but don't dream for just a fairytale . . . real life can be so much more exciting than a fairytale; it just depends on your perspective. most importantly, just dream . . . if you don't, you'll never know how it feels to have a dream come true.
I pray my girl will learn to dream big and with God's grace and a grateful heart her story will write itself like a fairytale. ("Happily ever after" is a sure thing when God is the author of our lives!) Sitting here in Ohio with 11 list rentals to do tonight, a tedious and very uncreative job, wearing frumpy jammies with my hair too long and my feet aching for a pedicure, I let my mind wander for a minute to where I could be had I chased other dreams. My heart stops. I wouldn't trade this place in my life--this day with these precious girls for ANYTHING. I remember my mom telling my sisters and I, three of us 18 months apart, that on some of her hardest days as a mom she was so thankful she could look out her kitchen window and know the world was larger than where she was right then and she was more than who she was for those fleeting years. Now she is still a mom and a grandma but following her dreams as a school principal and working on her PHD. I never forgot her words, and it is the same knowing that brings me peace on hard days when my heart grows restless for a "real" city and the boardroom and the spa. I want Delaney and Danica to see this amazing world and then put it in perfect perspective with the kind of joy I know being a wife and mother in a little rental house in northeast Ohio. I want them to know life is about seasons and they don't have to choose which shoes to wear because they can wear them all!
2 comments:
Oh, Moni. You made me cry buckets with you. Amen and amen! Praying for you and your lists tonight, that you would find joy in the commonplace. Praying for your little ones that they would dream big knowing they are safe in the hands of a very big God. Praying for your Dan that he would find rest for what must be a very weary body and peace in knowing his work is God's provision. I love you all so very much!
You made me cry too. I still cherish those days as I drive by the little house on the corner of Hoover Street and Midway with the window I looked out to the future. You are my future, all of you, and I love you dearly. And now there is that magnifying glass of the love I have for you that I see my nine beautiful grandchildren through. Proverbs 31 is a description of a life time. In those days I used to think I had to do it all everyday. Now I see the seasons of life better and I love the changes that come with each season.
Post a Comment