As I was surrounded by the sweet, dirty little brown faces that peered up at me with those piercing, shiny black eyes I had a flashback. I saw myself at their age flipping through the waxy pages of the “G” Encyclopedia, staring at the Guatemala section.
Dreaming.
No one knows how it started but I was mesmerized by Guatemala. I would stare at the pictures and dream about living there. I even had a Latin skirt and vest that my mom found at a thrift store. At 5 or 6 I wanted to be a missionary in Guatemala. Where did that come from?
The only answer is GOD. He planted that desire.
I am finally here but all I can do is cry. I thought I would be overly excited but instead my only reaction is to bawl my eyes out. I honestly can’t wrap my mind around it.
I would consider myself an emotional wreck. Crying like this is so abnormal for me. I definitely cry, but not much. God’s doing something in my heart. I think He is teaching me about surrender. I think He’s showing me how much I’ve taken over my life and how I’ve lived for the things of God instead of God Himself. How I pursued the paths and direction I thought God wanted me to take more than I pursued the Dream Maker. I thought by being in Latin America or international missions that I would be more in God’s will for my life and thus I would be happier and more fulfilled.
God’s real will for me is to be completely and fully in love with Him. That is when my true joy came. It wasn’t when I rolled over the El Salvador border into Guatemala. It was when I realized that the 20 year dream wasn’t ever going to satisfy or fulfill me. It might be my “calling” but even if it is, it will never be enough. I will always be searching. Yet there is One Thing that stops the search.
That is God. He makes me come alive!
I can honestly say that I don’t care where God takes me, even if it is in the US (which was my worst nightmare in the past). What I care about is what God cares about. I see the desperate faces who don’t even know what it’s like to dream. The ones who live on the street, the prostitutes who are hopeless, the kids who play in the urine covered-ground. The ones who live in metal houses and barely make money to eat. The ones who are abused so they move to the danger of the streets to be safe from their families.
They are my dream. They are my dream because it was given to me by their Maker- the dream maker.
