“If one more person looks at me and says, ‘Have you not had that baby yet?’, I am going to scream!  I mean, does it look like I’ve had this baby yet?” My well-meaning church family didn’t know that I was, well, umm, emotionally and physically depleted.  In the South we might call that being “As ill as a hornet.”

Not one of my better moments, for sure, but nonetheless, I had had it! Forty-two weeks pregnant by all accounts, I had begged my doctor to let me deliver naturally and not be induced. I was down to the wire in all regards. My doctor had said, “I can only let you wait another day or two.”  My family was certainly ready for me to deliver, if you know what I mean. And I myself was sick and tired of being pregnant.

Having been induced during my first two deliveries due to medical conditions and the fact that I just like to carry babies in my womb an inordinate amount of time, I was determined to go into labor on my own. I’m not sure if I felt this would make me more of a real woman or what. However, Elliott, my third-born who is graduating high school this Friday night, was not in a hurry to arrive.

Then it happened. 2:20 a.m. November 23, 1992. I awakened. Hmm, I wondered. Could that little feeling be my water breaking? I got up having heard that if your water breaks, things will begin to progress and you’ll know for sure.

Everyone else in the house was still asleep. I decided to get a shower just in case.  Then it hit me. A real labor pain. And then another. And then another.  Every five minutes like clockwork they came.

I awakened my husband. We lived an hour from the hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where my doctor delivered babies, and we had two children at home who needed to be awakened and dropped off at a friend’s home.

I began to put on my makeup for there were sure to be lots of photos taken. I started with this mint-green primer to cover up the redness. Nothing like a broken-out face to add to one’s self-confidence during pregnancy.

However, at that point, the pain was so intense that I abandoned the beautification process.

We threw the kids into the car, delivered them to our friends, and took off.  About twenty minutes into the journey, I begged my husband to stop at a different hospital that we were to pass enroute to Memphis. “No”, he said, “My baby is not being born at that hospital." (Long story).  I replied, “Well, then, your baby is going to be born on the side of the road because I am not going to make it to Memphis.”

He increased his speed.

Forty minutes after we arrived at the hospital, Elliott was born with peeling skin from being ‘postmature’ and more evidence that he had stayed in the cocoon as long as possible. The photos were made. My mint-green face smiled.

And let me just say, natural childbirth is not all it’s cracked up to be.

So often we have the same feelings in the spiritual realm that a pregnant woman has in the natural.

Impatience. Frustration. Tiredness. Misery. And joyful anticipation.

Romans 8:18 describes it this way: For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 

Romans 8 goes on to speak of how creation itself is waiting, groaning, yearning, and experiencing birth pangs and of how we ourselves are groaning, waiting for delivery.

The Message offers this rendition of Romans 8:22-28:

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

Most of us hate being enlarged. Stretched. Challenged. Taken out of our comfort zones.

We resist the process. We complain. We gripe.

“Why, oh, why?”

“When, oh, when?”

I suppose the answer to those questions is that there are more things being formed within us that are just not full-term yet. We are not being diminished and God does care. His Spirit intercedes for us. He is working it all together for our good.

Yet, it’s hard to believe at times. It tries our faith and our patience. And yet God is still in control. Stretching. Enlarging. He doesn’t run away from His involvement in our process. He knows that the end result will be the birthing of something beautiful in us and through us.

One day, you will watch your dream taking flight just as I experienced Elliott’s birth and now his graduation this week.

Suffering can lead to glory so hang in there! God is always doing more in the hidden places than we can see. Ask Him for the grace to wait and the inner knowing that there will be a joyful delivery in His own timing. 

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I felt reflective as I watched.  I wondered, “Can someone else kill your dreams?”

I’ve certainly experienced times when people misunderstood my dreams, shamed me for dreaming, called my dreams impossible or foolish.  I imagine we have all experienced that.  

And how have we responded? 

….in anger? 

…in disappointment? 

…in resolve to never give up? 

…in retreat by learning to hide that dream somewhere deep within us? 

…in fear? 

…in rejection? 

Oh, there are many ways we respond to the dream killers. They are probably people who themselves have allowed their dreams to shrivel up and die.  Therefore, they respond in anger or frustration or manipulation when they see a dream living in someone else – especially if that dream has a semblance of their own dream. 

People in the church are typically more likely to be dream killers than those outside the church walls.  Sadly, I’ve found it true so many times. They respond to our dreams with cautions and boundaries. Yet many times the outside world understands dreaming better than the church world. 

It should not be that way! 

Of course, we all need someone to speak wisdom into our lives and give us direction.  That is not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about the dream killers. 

I remember the first time I knew God has revealed part of His purposes for my life. As I shared a little of that dream – just enough to test the ground to find if it was safe –  and Christians threw water on my dream.  They said it was too hard. They said that it was not good for my family. 

Another time a church leader actually said in response to my excitement, “You’ll get over that.” 

And indeed, I felt that I’d just been dumped with water. 

You know, sometimes when someone shares a part of their heart with us by sharing a dream, it can touch on places within us that have been hurt.  When that happens, it is difficult for us to respond in encouragement. 

The ability to “dream” is part of God’s image within us.  Truthfully, it may be tainted at times by our own selfish desires, and we can manipulate it in so many ways.  But it is part of the design of God. 

I think of the scripture that says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick” and “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  Sounds like God knows about our heart’s desires, doesn’t it? 

From my experience, this is the way it goes. 

God places a dream inside your heart.  You don’t understand it fully but it is BIG! (God’s dreams have to be bigger than human dreams, don’t you think?) 

Everything, and I mean everything and almost everyone, will try to kill your dream. (Most of the time, they don’t even realize what they are doing out of their own wounded places.) 

God Himself tests your dream. 

When it is almost just a faint memory within your heart, the wind of God will gently begin to blow on it again. And we have to decide.  Do we really want to let that dream live again?  What if someone moves to kill it again?  Can we stand the pain again? 

When my husband and I left our church last year, I thought every dream that God had given me had died.  D-I-E-D- died. Forever.  One of the most painful parts was that I had just been willing to let those dreams really live for the first time.  I remember feeling that I had just understood my destiny for the first time.  I understood what it was like to walk fully in God’s purposes. Then my dreams splattered against the wall…shattered, and lay at my feet … mocking me. 

Saying as it were, “You were a fool to believe you understood what God had for your life.  You stepped out in faith, and your faith was not enough. Your dreams were tied to a church, a platform, another person,… and so now they are DEAD! Fool! 

God allowed it. He even purposed the testing of my dreams. 

Can I prove that?  Well, I think so.  God gave Joseph a dream – huge one – and then for 20 years “The Word (that he had been given) of the Lord tested Joseph.”  That dream was crushed so many times it was almost unrecognizable. And that was God’s purpose. 

To kill everything within Joseph that could not be trusted with the dream, but it was never God’s purpose to kill the dream itself.  Can you imagine the endless nights in the pit and in the prison and in a foreign land away from all his family and his traditional religious structures as Joseph questioned the validity of his dreams?  Maybe he even argued with God about it. Perhaps he was angry with God. For if God had not given him this dream,  then, logic says, there would have been nothing to share with his brothers and he would never have wound up in the pit, sold into slavery, thrown into prison, and well, you get it… 

Maybe part of Christian maturity is to finally admit we just don’t “get” God or His ways. Oh, we love to say that His ways are beyond our ways, but we sure don’t like it when we are required to live in the valleys, in the darkness of our souls, in the desolate places.  Yet how many times in the Word do we see God purposely putting people in valleys, dark places, desolate situations?  It doesn’t make for a pretty theology, does it? 

Sometimes we say and it is even reflected in our teaching and in our worship songs, that we will “never let go” of God. Well, I think there have been times when I have let go because I didn’t have enough strength to hold on, but HE HAS NEVER LET GO. And therein is peace… 

He never lets go.  Through the death of my dreams. Now I find I must learn to trust again.  Oh, I have been trusting, don’t mistake me, but I find the level required keeps growing. 

I sat this morning and looked at an invitation to speak at a women’s conference. It hurt. Whereas before I would have jumped at it, I now winced. “God, do you want me to do this?’ The conference is about women of influence.  It is about encouraging women to arise and shine and be empowered by God’s Spirit. It requires another level of trust for me. “God, if I do this, will it require more testing of my heart? More purification?” 

My husband told me this week that a particular situation I was going through was in order for God to bring healing to that part of my heart (he was half-joking and halfway serious). I replied, “Forget it.  I’ve had enough healing for one year! God needs to give me a break and work on someone else!” 

Ever felt that way? But I know that “the One who has begun a good work in me will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus”. So, I don’t have the option to un-enlist.  I will be transformed into His image one day and in the meantime, the death of my dreams and the resurrection of my dreams are part of the transformation. 

It’s kinda good that we don’t understand all that on the front end, isn’t it?  I know I would have run away.  But God leads us into the valley and then He allures us – that is what the Word says – He allures us to Himself.  The endless romance of giving our hearts and then taking a little back, and then He woos us again, and then cycle continues. 

Truthfully, the only way someone else can kill your dreams, if they be from God, is if you allow it. Oh, it will be painful to pursue those dreams. God will lead you through situations designed to kill everything but the dream. But the power of resurrection show itself in the living of the dream again. And resurrection is a hope which cannot die.

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If your reality could be like your dreamland, what would your life be like? 

What would you change if it were possible to wave a magic wand over your life and watch the pumpkin and rats turn into a carriage drawn with majestic horses as in the story of Cinderella?

When we are children, it is easy to dream or imagine.  We dream of magical places and of ourselves as knights in shining armor and beautiful princesses.  We dream of lands where everything is good and lovely.  But as we live out our lives here on earth, oftentimes our ability to “dream” dies as we face what is sometimes harsh reality and the disappointments of everyday life. We are slapped on the hands by those who say it is foolish to dream.

Yet I believe we were created to dream. Part of the image of God within us all is the ability to imagine…the desire for things to be “dreamy” comes from God Himself.  He is the one who has made us with “forever” in our hearts.  He created us as spiritual beings who live in a body and have a soul.  Spiritual beings who belong ultimately in another world. A dreamland.

So the longing for dreamland is perhaps a longing for a heavenly existence. In the meantime, we have a dream to live out here on the earth for our lives are not to be lived only with the hope of tomorrow but also with the hope of today. But what if you or I have lost the ability to dream?  What if life has hurt us to the point that we no longer desire to dream?  What if we don’t want to risk any more disappointment so we build walls around our heart to protect us from being hurt and we live in a place where our “dreams” are very safe and achievable and we settle for much less than we were created for?

A sad thought, isn’t it?  What is it that God dreamed of when He created you?

What was on God’s heart when He began to weave you together in your mother’s womb?

Since I am an adopted child, I am always drawn to wonder about God’s plan for my life. Psalm 139 is a favorite of mine…

You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.  I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows very well.  My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.  Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed and in Your book, they all were written. The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

I am so intrigued by God’s foreknowledge.  I can’t answer all the difficult questions about God like “Where was God when …?” But throughout the years, I have seen Him take the very worst things in my life and make something good. How mysteriously wonderful!

And I find God is patient – unlike me. I had a dream a couple of years ago where I entered a building which appeared to be completed on the outside, but when I entered, it was framed up but not completed.  Two-by-fours were everywhere.  I went into one of the “rooms” and someone handed me a manuscript that said The Peace Giver by Mikki Lawrence.  It had been written but had not been published yet.  When I awakened, I had a feeling that even though I often taught on the peace of God, I had some more lessons to learn about peace considering that the building was not completed on the inside. I knew the lessons were to address things “inside” me. Then about 18 months ago, I wrote a little booklet about peace – my first writing since high school. Ha!  I think God patiently smiled as He mused on how little I really knew about peace and about Him, The Peace Giver. 

Sometimes those of us in ministry say that you always get tested on what you teach, so I’ve had a major test on peace.  I think I’ve failed most of it, but the amazing thing is that we can learn so much by failing. Someday, I might write that book on The Peace Giver but for now I am still retaking the test. 

The deepest longing of my heart – placed there by God Himself- is to stand before Him one day and know that I became all He dreamed of when He created me.  Oh, I know I’ll never become perfect on this earth, but He knew that when He made me. But to fulfill His purposes is living in Dreamland.  Marvelous are Your works…The word “works” speaks of purpose. The purposes of God are like fire in our bones. They drive us to get up off the floor and dream God’s dreams again. Truly beauty from ashes –almost as if God dips His finger in the ashes of our lives and uses the ashes to paint something new. 

Never stop dreaming God’s dreams for His dreams awaken within us hope and purpose and destiny.  And if life has left you broken and purposeless, I pray you’ll be touched by His love, drenched in His goodness, covered with His beautiful presence in a way that will renew your ability to dream. May the wind of His Spirit blow over the embers of your dead dreams and cause the fire to burn once again. 

Dreamland… a pleasant, lovely land that exists only in dreams or the imagination 

Imagination … a gift God has given to humans who are created in His image …the ability to imagine things as they could be 

Dreams…in part for our todays and in entirety for our tomorrows.

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