What's Your Dream

-

I keep hearing the guy on the street in the movie Pretty Woman.
"What's your dream? Everybody has a dream."

At the beginning of fall, I began praying through what I felt like God was leading me to do with my life. It is ridiculously easy to get to the end of the day (month, year) and not actually accomplish anything. We are a distracted people. We can also strive so hard to accomplish goals that we miss the humans we are meant to care for. I pondered through Bob Goff's question about what we would do if we weren't afraid anymore. I thought deeply about Mary Oliver's Summer Day poem that asks what we are going to do with our one wild and precious life. I made several lists and talked down fear over and over. I wrote out all the visions cast in my heart and things I have been too afraid to do. I laid out a step by step plan for each item on my list and I keep placing each item back into the hands of God. 

Each day, I have been asking him to do the work. I have been asking him to dig up every painful thing in my heart and use it for his glory. My constant prayer has been that he will himself pull up things that the enemy wants to use to shame, ridicule, and to defile me to paint wild pictures of healing. He is working. I keep going forward even when I feel stupid or desperately afraid. I keep going when people hurt me. I have learned that pain and fear are usually signs to pay attention to the path. 

My first dream is to spend time writing. I have stories etched in my soul that are longing to be told. I have put this on the back burner with motherhood and missions. I am realizing that it is time to write the words.

I listed out 10 dreams and I am going to begin sharing them with you. First up, I am going to Haiti for 10 days. I am not a foreign mission junkie or missionary tourist. I went to Haiti last year because I wanted to know how I could best pray for and support my friend Christy (Executive Director of an orphanage in Port au Prince). I went to serve her and help make her dreams for Haitians a reality. I am headed there again at the end of the month. I will be teaching art and helping at the orphanage. I have almost met my goal to buy art supplies and pay for my lodging. My ticket is booked! Would you pray for me? Last year before I went, my husband cut off his toe. This year, my daughter broke her ankle and had surgery. God hems us in behind and before. So, the plan the enemy had for harm made me book the flight. 


View Steph's Haiti Fundraiser

Shop in my store at stephcherry.com



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

David Crowder's House Restoration

-
Image
A recent edition of Waco Today featured David Crowder's six year renovation project(we had to go check it out). I said a quiet prayer that God would let our house be completed before six years was up for us and then I dove in to the details. David and his wife bought the home of the man who invented Dr. Pepper. It is encouraging to see something that took so much effort and energy come to completion. May we soon see the same thing. You can read the story of the Crowder renovation here .
Read more

A Writer's Callous

-
Image
Alright, baby photo below. Quit emailing me! ;-) I remember having a writer's callous when I was five years old. In my adolescence I hated it. Now, I find it fascinating. Almost as long as I have been alive I have borne a mark that declares I am passionate about something in such a way that it bores into my skin. I have been blessed with wonderful Apple products to use and I still prefer writing things out. I heard Michelle Pfeiffer say David Kelley writes out all of his award winning shows on yellow legal pad. I like that. I prefer a journal and a real wood pencil (the kind that are stained, not the yellow ones.) There's something romantic about it to me. Writing is a choice medium in my relationship with God . I love to prayer journal. I pour out thanks for every minute that I get to spend doing it. In last weeks post I told you that God broke my Mac so I would spend some time alone with Him (then I can have it back in January). Shortly thereafter the enemy came in tel...
Read more

Miscarriage | Infertility | Hope

-
Image
I encountered Jesus as a young child in a church pew in the balcony of an old country church. Through a lifetime of trial, I knew he was there. I did not always know or understand what he wanted of me, but I knew I was wanted. We could go through all of the pain and abuse of my life and unpack each tiny detail, but that is not what this is really about. I love what Frederick Buechner said, “Pain is not the biggest thing that has ever happened to you.” That is true. I have beheld far greater glory. As I clung to his word through all of this, I knew he was there.   My story about trying begins long before I began trying to have children. I tell you this because almost half of the population has been abused in some way. The attack on my uterus began when I was four-years-old. I spent most of my life believing that I was broken and I was crippled by shame. I carried that shame into every relationship I had. As I encountered people in the church, I never felt safe enough to ask for...
Read more