Because It's Scary

My daughter has been counting the days until she was legally old enough to drive a car since she turned 15. She has been reminding us each time the calendar hits 25, how many more months it would be until she could get behind the wheel for the first time. She's bemoaned the fact that ALL her friends have not only started driving before her, most of them are 16 already and have gotten their licence, and why did SHE have to be born at the end of July? Last weekend she started planning for how she was going to be able to go out driving when that magic day arrived, given the fact that I won't let her drive in the dark and we had a function to attend that evening. She resigned herself to the idea that she was going to have to wait, and on Sunday The Boy™ took her out for her first trip out. If she was nervous, she didn't show it at all, and the grin on her face says it all: I am so ready for this!

This morning during reading groups, we were talking about hobbies. One of the students in my group asked what hobbies were, and I went on to explain that hobbies were things that you liked to do in your free time when you weren't at school or doing chores. I told them that I liked to read, write, draw, knit, and then I was interrupted by one of the boys who asked, "Why don't you just be an author then?" I stopped talking for a second, taken aback by his question, as this has been something I have been quietly struggling with myself lately, and then I answered him. I thought about giving him all the answers I have been giving myself. How it's too hard. How there's not enough money in it. How no one would want to read what I have to write about. How I'm not really good at it. Instead I looked at him and simply said, "It's too scary." He laughed and replied, "What?" I want on to explain that in order to be a writer, you had to send your work out to other people, who had to read it. Then they had to decide that they wanted to buy it and make your work into a book, because what I really want to do is write children's books. Then of course, because I love to draw and paint, I might want to make the pictures for my books too. Then, people had to want to buy your books, and the whole idea of doing all that, is scary. Then I waved my hand around the room and said, you guys aren't scary, so I do this instead. He nodded his head and we went on to continue our discussion about hobbies, and that was that.

I haven't stopped thinking about it all day. Just this week I started reading a book by Holley Gerth called, "You're Already Amazing." She has a blog and she's been doing a bit lately on God sized dreams. The dreams you have in the depth of your heart, that you don't share with anyone else but if you were free to pursue them, and had enough faith in yourself and in God's purpose for you, could become a reality. I already knew I had a few God sized dreams in my heart. If money weren't an issue I would like to travel to Guatemala and visit the little girl that I sponsor through Compassion International. I would also like to do mission work there, and if I could do it in the same area where her center is, that would be amazing. My dream would be to go for a season. Half a year would be amazing, but I would settle for just a few weeks. I also dream of being a foster parent. I used to think I wanted to adopt, but I think that being a foster parent and providing a loving stable home for a child who has been broken would be far more rewarding. Of course, now that I think about it, all of my God sized dreams are scary. They all would force me out of my comfort zone and require me to give up who I am and what I do. That part I know I could handle. What it always comes down to is the money issue. I just don't know how to make any of it work. So for now, I keep praying that God's will in my life be done, and I make a vow to write. Something. Every day. It's a start.