When dreams are just dreams.

'You're going to be a mum!' 

'Me?' Laughs Sarah, 'I'm far too old now!'

'You need to build a boat.  It's going to rain.  A lot.'

'In this dry land?' Quizzes Noah.

'You're going to free my precious people from slavery.'

'But I'm a murderer and I can't even speak properly.' Protests Moses.

'You're going to be King.'

'I'm the youngest and I'm only a shepherd boy.' Wonders David.

Dreams and promises.  

We've all got them.  They might be squashed down, hidden beneath layers of a busy life, but they are there and every now and again they pop their heads up again to remind us of their presence.  

When we look at ourselves and our circumstances they seem impossible.  That's what makes them dreams.  If they were realistic, we'd have done them by now.  It's so easy to whitewash over them with our realism and sometimes cynicism but however many coats we paint, the rainbow coloured dream-paint always manages to show through.  Those dreams never completely vanish and our naked hearts ask the 'what ifs' and the 'hows'.

How do we live with the rawness of the promises and the unfulfilled reality?  How did Sarah live with the promise of a baby without any glimmer of hope?  How did Moses untangle the mess of his utter pain of watching his people live through such injustices whilst not being able to act until the right time? How did Noah survive the presumed misunderstanding of his friends and family while building a boat for a supposed flood?  There was no sign of these dreams being fulfilled.  Not even a droplet.

I find myself looking for a droplet.  I want to know that the heart-wrenching, stomach-squeezing pain I feel is going to result in a fulfillment of the dreams and promises I hold in my heart.  But there is no sign.  

And so I take one step after another, completely blind to what is ahead, but holding on to the One who already knows and I put my hope in Him.  I walk through each door He opens, sometimes completely confused.  I try to keep the tears and the ache of injustice from spilling over and I take my cries to the One who will wipe away every tear.

I stop whitewashing over my dreams.

And I keep my eyes fixed on Him.

I don't know how to live a different life. 

Post script...

As I finish writing this, I look out of my window to this...

He keeps his promises.  Every single time.