sometimes dreams don't look like I think they will

My dream has always been to be a writer.
Even when I didn't know it.
From the time I was a little kid learning to read, loving the images and the
feel of words in my mouth.
To moments in junior high,
when I wrote an entire story shaped around the beauty of teal mascara,
To my afternoons working with kids as a college student, when I entertained them with
stories of tiny fairies who lived in strawberry patches and rode bumblebees.
Writing has been a constant theme.
But my writing had always been for me. For my pleasure.
It fulfilled something in me.
Sometimes I would show it to my parents.
Because by law they had to say nice things and tell me how brilliant I was.
I shared it with my sisters and my close friends.
Anyone who felt safe and who I knew loved me already.
But mostly, I was too scared of rejection to share it with anyone else.
It was too connected to who I was for me to let anyone critique it.
Because it felt like my soul was being critiqued.
And then came slow realization of knowing that I wanted what I wrote to be read...
even if it crushed me...because keeping my words to myself felt like hoarding.
And if I didn't begin to let people in...my writing would never grow or change or be
more than a thought that I hid away in one of my many journals.
So began the painful and long process of my words being rejected and turned down by
professionals...editors...agents...publishers.
It was turned down a lot....
by all sorts of people....
in lots of different ways...letters...phone calls...emails...face to face...for about 10 years.
10 years is a really long time. You can get wrinkles and gray hair in ten years.
Sometimes I tucked the dream away for a year or two and nursed my wounds.
I would say things to myself like,
"They are dumb...they don't know what good writing is."
Mostly, I felt dumb and really thought I probably didn't know what good writing was.
But eventually, the notebooks would come back out.
The new word document would be pulled up.
And the words would come pouring out one more time.
Because when you have a dream...a real dream...it can't stay tucked away forever.
But what I thought my dream would look like began to change.
And one thing I never realized as a kid was that dreams are really hard work.
A dream coming true is less like a Disney movie and more like a live birth.
It is still beautiful.
But most likely it will not be sprinkled with fairy dust. There may be some screaming involved.
But here is the thing,
God has some dreams with your name on them.
They will turn your life upside down
and flip your heart inside out.
They will probably look absolutely almost never like you think they will.
But beautiful things happen when God births a dream in us.
Heart wrenching, mind blowing, achingly beautiful things.
They may not look like we think they should look or feel like we think they should feel.
But they are the things that make life good and exciting and real and full of hope.
So....
Follow them anyway.