dreams

most days i feel like one big walking conflict. i have big dreams - romantic dreams (not like the movies or novels really), scary dreams, overwhelming dreams, challenging dreams, the kind of dreams that motivate you to reach for goals that excite and terrify you. but it doesn't take much to freak me out, and if you ask anyone i'm close to they would quickly tell you that i tend to be annoyingly realistic and often times negative in my thinking. balancing the dreamer and the intuition with the practical and sensing is one of the most difficult things about my personality.

you could probably care less about any of that. but tonight i feel a bit trapped. i know what i want to do with my life, but i'm not sure how to get there, or my motives behind it. i feel scatterbrained and unfocused. i find myself dreaming of working with young women, of adopting orphans, of all kinds of things - and most of the time these dreams don't involve waiting around on the dream of marriage which adds to the fear of it all.

what terrifies me is that i believe that i am so unqualified to do what i dream of doing. i've grown up sheltered, and i'm grateful because my story has been riddled with God's preventative grace. i have no idea what it's like to grow up in poverty, or to be abused, or to be abandoned. i don't know what addiction is like, or what it means to grow up never feeling loved or wanted. i'm afraid of all of those things. i feel as though i've bitten off way more than i could ever chew, let alone swallow. and as much as i'm afraid of being in over my head, i'm equally scared of living the American dream. it's not that the American dream is wrong, it's just that something in me longs for a bit more than a life built around things that will pass away. i've never wanted for anything, and never had to work for anything in my life, so it's easy to say that i want more than the American dream when i've never had to go without it a day in my life. the idea of casting the American dream aside has become rather trendy and glamorized, but it's not at all. i love being comfortable. i'm afraid of being uncomfortable and unsafe... but my dreams don't seem to care about that fear.

i want to not be afraid, and i don't have to be any longer. i want the desires of my heart to be the same as the desires of God's heart. i want to adopt. i want to love on orphans. i want to minister to the broken. i want faith. for once in my life, i want to walk in gentle boldness and courageous love.