Oscar Wilde once said, “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.” My mind has been wrestling with the idea of what it means to live fully, no matter what season of life I may be in.
Some seasons consist of travel and spontaneity. Some are spent working and building and planting for the future. Some seasons are spent giving all that we are just to get by, or keep up, or merely find joy in the day. Some seasons are full of a lot of sunshine and some feel like a consistent rain storm. In the midst of it all, the invitation to be engaged in life is always extended. We get to choose into the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and courageous, a hope that doesn’t settle for mediocrity or lukewarm living and love.
Lately I’ve been creating a space to sit with the Lord and dream about the possibilities to come, the what if’s and why not’s. He reminds me repeatedly that we are who we choose to be. We get to paint our reality and decide whether we want to dance in a meadow full of wildflowers or settle for a life of waiting and hoping for someone else to bring us a periodic bouquet. We are given the opportunity to create a reality full of spontaneity, whimsy and thrill in the day to day that doesn’t have to be compromised in the midst of routine, stability and natural challenges along the way.
I was prompted by a friend to create a list of dreams for my life.
100 dreams – no matter how big, small, or crazy they may seem, to put them down on paper and hope with all of my heart that Jesus will help me to check them off one by one.
It’s a vulnerable thing, this whole dream list. It requires a willingness to be real, raw and honest with the things I want to have, things I want to do in life and the woman I want to be. I’ve learned that we all keep possibilities, ideas, desires and dreams tucked away in this safe place in our minds, fearing that if we speak them into existence, we will then face the let down of them potentially not coming to fruition. Or allowing someone to make them appear unrealistic because they themselves find it easier to live complacent or comfortable with the reality they’ve created. We default to a mindset content with life as it is or what it won’t be, rather than stepping out in faith, with courage and a willingness to believe that you are worthy of a life lived outside of the box, full of spontaneity and consistent joy, a joy that makes you feel alive.
So I ask you….. What makes you feel alive? What makes you feel passionate about life?
Do you dream to have fresh flowers on your kitchen table each week? Do you hope to run a marathon one day? To be a mother? To read 100 books in a year? To hike Mt. Kilimanjaro or intentionally write your husband and loved ones a letter each month? Do you dream of squishing grapes between your toes, savoring your first batch of homemade wine, with good friends around a table?
Whatever season you may be in, whether you’re are working towards your 401k, traveling to foreign lands, giving all that you can to provide for your kids or comfortably caught up in your daily routine, I encourage you to slow down and stop for a moment. Set everything else aside and make a dream list for your life. Put all of those what if’s and why not’s down on paper and believe that they are possible.
We get a sweet invitation from the Lord each morning when we wake up – an invitation to be engaged with life, to be intentional with the people around us, to make a dream list and pursue each item on it with courage and faith that we were indeed created to live fully, spontaneously, whimsically and in love. Dreaming doesn’t have to always be big and far away. Dreams can exist in the regular every day too.
You matter.
Your dreams matter. They aren’t outlandish ideas that only few people actually can say are reality.
Dream. Write it down. And chase every last one of them.
”One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.” – Frederick Buechner
