I have big dreams. It seems like I’ve always had them, like they were planted inside of me from before this earth life. As I was starting to try and live my dreams, I found myself feeling overwhelmed and unmotivated. People began misunderstanding my intentions behind the videos that I was posting, and I started wondering if maybe my dreams weren’t “good”.
Some of my dreams involve music and making videos, traveling, speaking and sharing my music to a worldwide audience, but I also have dreams about having a loving husband, close relationships with my children and family and being able to serve one-on-one. I’ve always wanted to help people feel hope in their lives, see new perspectives, improve their relationships, and learn how to love difficult people.
There are so many things that I want to do, but it’s hard sometimes to even know where to start. I started thinking that maybe I needed to dream a little smaller and live my dreams by just picking one thing at a time.
I remembered when I was married and going crazy with 7 kids, how it seemed easier for me to decide what to do. I didn’t have a lot of time, so when I did, I knew exactly what to work on. Most of the time, I felt God was inspiring me to know what to do – to write a song, spend more time with my kids, or to work on a video that sometimes took months to finish.
Now with the changes in my life, even though what I was doing felt “good”, I realized I had taken God out of the equation. I wasn’t doing anything because I felt “inspired” to, only because I wanted to.
I humbled myself, and decided that I needed to let God lead again.
I decided to back off from many of the projects I was working on, and stopped trying to do everything all at once. I thought maybe I should just pick one thing at a time to work on, and to only do what I felt inspired to do.
Almost 10 years ago, I had been working almost non-stop on a food storage program. It was supposed to help people calculate their food storage and make it easier to get a year supply. I worked on it for a long time, but I never completely finished it. I decided I’d start with that, and prayed that if God wanted me to work on anything else, He would let me know. I literally gave God the control.
That weekend, I had some amazing experiences.
At a party that I was socializing at, I ran into someone that was talking about what he did as a “relationship consultant”. I had never heard that term before, but as he explained it, I realized it fit almost exactly what I was wanted to do in helping people with their relationships. He told me he had been a relationship consultant for almost 10 years, and that he would be happy to help me get my business started and teach me what he knew, as he was transitioning to being more of a life coach. The whole conversation seemed too good to be true. It was as if Heavenly Father was saying, “Don’t stop trying to help others in their relationships. Here is someone who can help you.” I felt grateful that I didn’t have to give up on those dreams.
Later that evening, I took an opportunity to answer the call for a pianist and ended up getting involved with some amazing musicians. One of them is a producer and looking for music to produce. I’m excited to think that maybe (in exchange for making sheet music) I might be able to get some help in recording some of my music more professionally. Again, I felt God saying, “Keep music in the picture.”
The next morning, I was considering the things that had happened and realized the only other thing I wanted to be doing was speaking and sharing some of the things I’ve learned and stories behind my songs.
Later at the park, while I was playing basketball with my youngest son, the bishop from my church happened to see me and decided to come and talk with me for a moment. He said he had been wanting to ask if I would be willing to perform some of my songs for the youth, and if I also could share some of the reasons why I wrote them.
It seemed like a miracle, and I almost wanted to cry. Again, I felt God’s approval for the dreams that I have and for the things that I’ve wanted to do. I have no doubt that God is very conscious of those things that we desire and is willing to help, if only we will let him.
So, I’m going to continue living my dreams. I have no idea what exactly that looks like, but I’m taking one step at a time, and being ready to jump whenever opportunities come my way. I’m going to continue doing what God wants me to do. I love that ironically – they are the same exact things I want to do anyway.
What are your dreams?
