Dream-Launch

 Today, I witnessed the launch of a dream. 

My pastor and my friend, my prayer warrior and fellow mama in the trenches, now published author, Dawn Lipsey launched her book. I had the privilege of reading it during the final editing stages, and it is absolutely a Word from the Lord. There are certain motifs in this book that have lived in my head since I read it in November. It is no doubt going to minister to people where they are, and move them to walk forward through and into what the Lord has for them.

Watching the culmination of this God-dream of hers got me thinking about my own dreams. 

Dreams realized, dreams deferred, dreams still germinating, dreams I am in the middle of living...

And with that, I also started to think about the periods of time when dreams are dead. When the soil of our hearts is dry and cracked, when there isn't a cherished seed that we take out from time to time to nurture, treasure, and then tuck back into fertile soil. 

I know people in the midst of each of these stages and phases of dream-growth right now. 

As I watched Dawn, teary-eyed and smiling, greet the long line of people who came by after church to congratulate her and purchase books and shirts and bags and caps, I thought of all of the hours she spent laboring over this work. I thought about the discouragement she mentioned in her sermon, the starts and stops, and the fear of failure. I thought about the call of the Lord on her to write and the ways she said she tried to adjust the call to fit what she knew to be her giftings, rather than push forward into the uncomfortable unknown outside of her comfort zone. 

And I vowed to remember what the launch looks like when I'm in the other periods of my own dream-growth. To keep the end in my heart, even when my head is bogged down in the muck of the process.

Thank you, Dawn, for leading us well in so many ways, but mostly for living what you preach.