In a nutshell our household has consisted of homeschool, church, activities, a couple out of town trips, new business ventures, lots of face painting and fireworks, unexpected funerals, birthdays and the normal family functions, grocery store trips, tons of kids' stuff and tons of other stuff.... like unfinished projects, family disagreements, parenting drama, nose picking, nail biting, stitches/trips to the ER, kid bickering, girl drama, car issues, AC issues, health issues, and all the other stuff that comes with living in a fallen world.
With all that put aside, do you know what the best thing about all of this fun chaotic life stuff is? It happened yesterday, 5-minutes ago, a year ago, 30 seconds ago, 7 hours ago, 6 months ago..... do you see where I am going with this? Bottom line is: Everything that has happened to us is in the past/yesterdays.
I went to a great event at Lifechurch.tv called Sisters this last week. I was stoked to get to go because not only was a getting a Mom's Night Out with some fun friends, I was going to get to see Chris Caine. For those of you who don't know who she is you really need to get with the program here, because she is absolutely one of the most amazing women of God that is on this planet (So get with it and click her name to see what God is using her for already!)! Free food=no cooking, no kids (we love them, don't get me wrong), no husbands (yes, we love our men too), no chores, nothing but Sister time getting some Jesus! Woot Woot! Crud, now I got myself all amped up again with no where to go.
Okay, so now that the scene is set I will carry on. Chris came out to speak and I was fired up and ready to receive it. She started talking about frogs. Remember the story in Exodus 8 where God sent a plague of frogs throughout the entire city? She carried on reading the entire story, rather impressively fast, and then stopped at the very end where in vs. 9 and Moses asked the Pharaoh when would be a good time for them to pray for the plague to end. Then in vs. 10 you see that Pharaoh answers with "Tomorrow." Chris expresses this craziness in such a way that you are on the edge of your seat waiting to hear where she is going with this. This guy's entire city has frogs literally crawling EVERYWHERE and instead of facing the issue right then in the time it was happening he says it can wait until tomorrow. I bet his people were super pleased with that. NOT.
So, this leads me to today. I thought the last few days about things that could be a potential "frog" in my life. Something that I am continually waiting on a tomorrow, that in reality will never come, to rid myself of. The big one that hit my heart that very evening of Sisters was that I had become a skeptic/pessimist. Not just any glass half empty kind either. The worst kind. The kind that says she truly believes God can heal us in today's time, God can move our mountains, God can change the hearts of the unbeliever's but then doesn't really fully allow herself to see those things through.
Example A: My husband is an amazing man. He has been through so much and has come so far. He is a man of many talents and has ambition that you will rarely see in anyone these days. He has been seeking the Lord for years now on where He wants him to take his career. He has jumped through every door he believed God opened with lil to no hesitation. It's something to admire to be honest with you. I mean, I don't know about you, but I tend to hesitate when my financials are on the line and I have a family of 6 to tend to. Well, he has been patient with this journey. There has been so many doors shut along the way and that started to get to me. I could see him discouraged at times and I became frustrated because I thought we should be doing things differently work wise. I wanted him to do what would make the money come in while he was looking for what God had planned for him. He tried that for a while. Needless to say, God was right, I was wrong, my husband needed to surrender it all not just some of it. He felt our Dad tugging towards his passion for photography. He opened the door and Aaron dove in after much prayer. (which is important. pray first. then dive)
Let's wrap this up. What's the "frog" I am dealing with? Well, the pessimist and skeptic wife I had become because I wouldn't let go of the financial struggles we have endured in the yesterdays, basically became a "Dream Crusher" on what God had in the works for my own husband. That's a HUGE frog if you ask me.
THE CONCLUSION:
A few years ago Sheri Yates from IKAN Ministries spoke at a convention I attended on something called a "Dream Wall". The concept I took away from it was to allow your family to dream and dream big because our God is a God that does the impossible and He can do anything so with Him and his guidance we can see and do the impossible. No dream is too small, silly, stupid, unreachable if it is what God has planned for your life. Who am I to say no my kid can't become the best reader in her homeschool group because she has something called a "learning disability". Who am I to say my husband can't be one of the most amazing photographers that I have seen! Who am I to say that all of our children can't become highschool graduates and go to college. Who am I to say we can't become free of debt. Who am I to say anything against a dream that another might have!
FUNDAY SUNDAY:
God told me to finish the project he told me to do after that convention a few years ago. He told me to create a Dream Wall like Sheri had talked about. He wanted me to make one and teach our family how to live out our God given potential and dreams. BUT WHAT DID I DO-I answered like the Pharaoh and said "eh, I'll get to that tomorrow." That choice to be disobedient caused the growth to be stunted in our family. Which in turn meant that we all missed out on what could have been experienced those last few years. NO MORE TOMORROWS. No more holding on to the past or avoiding it. We stopped at the Home Depot on the way home from church and got the paint and came straight home and created a beautiful Dream Wall that we now can sit down and start living out.
"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do!!!" (Ephesians 2:10)
Don't live in your yesterdays. Tomorrow never truly gets here. Today is all your are guaranteed. Teach your family how to believe and live in their Dreams.
This is our family's new Dream Wall. Yours could be different. I wanted something to hang on a wall we could all see and not have to put up.
