Maybe Someday Dreams

I have a collection of maybe someday dreams in my head.  Substantial, hefty sort of dreams - they’ll require me to be more than who I am now.  Like, maybe someday I’ll be a children’s book author.  Or, maybe someday I’ll climb Mount Rainier. 

This past October, I was really caught up in God answering my prayer for marriage.  In the midst of those fervent prayers, God plopped a huge YES in my lap.  Not to marriage, but to a big maybe someday dream.  I’m going to Africa to train teachers.  Next month. 

What?!

It’s true.  I feel like I may as well be going to Mars, this was so off my radar of expectations.  I love teaching and have never seen myself being based solely in the classroom for my whole career.  As the years pass, I’ve thought more about training teachers, especially women in countries where opportunities are not as plentiful as they are for men.  I’ve been learning more about leadership and taken on more responsibility at work, but I still thought training teachers overseas was a long ways off for me.  Now, it’s 3 weeks away.

How did it happen?  Last spring, Uganda kept coming up in my life.  My Mom gave me Katie Davis’s book, people sent me articles about the country, and it often came up in conversation.  I figured God was trying to tell me something, so I reached out to some contacts and looked into spending last summer in Uganda.  Nothing panned out.

In October, my friend Tembi and I were praying about our big visions for God, and I mentioned how Uganda seemed significant somehow.  I’ve never been to Africa and I wasn’t sure geographically where Uganda was located, nor the name of any Ugandan city.  But, there was something about Uganda.  

We prayed, and Tembi had a realization. 

“Hey!  My cousin has a school in Uganda!”

Yes, she does.  I met with Tembi’s cousin and my heart to serve teachers fits what her school needs right now.  Amazing.

Since then, door after door has opened and I am meeting new people with Uganda connections, one after another.  It looks like this will be more than a one-time visit.  I’m going to Uganda for two and a half weeks in February, with hopes of spending next summer doing more work there.  The goal of this first trip is to listen, learn, and offer support as God leads me.  I have no idea what I’m getting into, but I am excited to take the next step.

Here’s one simple example of my current ignorance: I asked about bringing contact lenses – would it be worth it, or is it too dusty in the village?  Tembi’s cousin reassured me, “Oh, we’ll mark our jerry can of water really well, so we’ll have clean water.”   Okay.  Our water comes from a can, after we get it from the well.  “And bring something to wear when we walk down to the shower.”  Okay.  We walk to the shower, which isn’t a shower at all, but those same trusty cans and a cup for splashing oneself.

It’s going to be awesome. 

Would you come with me?  Would you travel with me through prayers and encouragement? 

Please pray into what God is doing and will do through these steps towards what He’s revealed.  Please pray for Uganda, for the Ebenezer school and its community, pray for our safety (four ladies traveling together), pray for divine appointments.  Pray for my heart to be content in waiting for the day when I can adopt a precious child of my own (another maybe someday dream!).  Would you send me verses and encouraging words?

I’ll post stories, most likely when I return in March.  Thank you for joining me in the maybe someday that has become a yes, okay, right now, go for it.  

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Waiting: Being Where You Are

This perspective on waiting is from Anne, my best friend since first grade.  Thanks for sharing your story - it is so relevant!

When I work late, I usually call my husband, Eric, from the office.  If it’s after 7 pm, he’ll pick me up instead of me taking the bus home.  I never know how much time I need to finish up, so I just call him when I’m done and then I have to wait twenty minutes for him to arrive.  Or, I’ll call before I’m ready, hoping to save time.  That leaves Eric waiting in the car until I’m done.

Sometimes I walk to meet him along the road, thinking I’ll save time that way.  Eric calls me “Moving Target Annie” – I cause him more trouble because I’m much harder to find that way.  But I want to get home that much faster.  ‘Oh, I can take a fast bus and have Eric pick me up closer to home!’ I think.  Then the bridge goes up, Eric gets caught in that traffic, and we’re still waiting.  Complicated is the word for this. 

When I was younger, maybe eleven years old, I went to a University of Washington day camp.  Typically, I’d walk to my mom’s office on campus when camp was over.  There was one day, however, that I needed to stay a little later and we’d planned to meet at a particular spot at 5 pm.  I waited there for 15 - 20 minutes with no sign of my mom.  This was before everyone had cell phones, so I went to call her on a pay phone.  That meant walking away from the meeting spot and missing my mom when she came.  An hour passed.  I walked to the pay phone to call again.  No answer.

Finally, a cop car rolled up to me.  “Do you know an Anne Morris?” the officer asked.

“I am Anne Morris,” I replied, absolutely shocked that the police officer knew my name.

The cop drove me to my mom’s office.  My mom had gone to the meeting spot two times looking for me.  She was so upset when I walked into her office.  If I would have stayed in one place, none of this trouble would have happened.

Throughout my life, I’ve had trouble staying in the moment.  I’m learning to distract myself from always thinking of the next thing.  It boils down to a lack of control.  I want to contribute to the situation so it’s efficient.   If I just let go of that and give myself more time, I focus on enjoying that time by doing something I normally wouldn’t do, like reading a book.  That helps me through it.  I’m learning patience.  I enjoy these moments because it’s still time – time that I’m alive and can be in that place.  Maybe I’ll see something I wouldn’t have seen otherwise, if I had been go, go, go.

Winter Print by Anne & Eric

Waiting: A Mother's Perspective

Thank you to my beautiful Mom, Denise, who shared this piece of her story.

I always wanted a baby.  I got married young, when I was twenty.  My husband said he was not ready for children.  Meanwhile, my friends were busy reproducing.  Sometimes I ached when I went to baby showers to share someone else’s joy.

Finally, after five long years, I was pregnant.

I was utterly thankful to God and to my husband.  In my third month, I started to bleed.  The doctor told me, “If it stops today or tomorrow, the baby’s probably fine.”  That night, the bleeding stopped.  Everything was okay.

I went for my fifth month check-up and the doctor said, “Something is wrong.”  Either I was only three months pregnant, or the baby had died inside of me, because my uterus was only big enough to accommodate a three month fetus.

They sent me for an ultrasound.  Ultrasounds were rare in the ‘70’s.  The technician’s words were, “The baby has no heartbeat.  It’s not alive.”

A couple of days later, I went to the hospital to have my womb cleaned out.  Back in the maternity ward after the procedure, I lay there recovering next to a sixteen year old who was eight months pregnant and in danger of losing her baby.   A nurse came in with a baby in her arms. 

“I’m looking for yours.  What’s your name?”

“My baby died,” I replied coldly.

“Don’t worry.  You’ll have a baby soon,” she tried to be reassuring.

Back at home, I continued to bleed.  My womb was trying to finish delivering what remained. 

Two months later, I discovered I was pregnant again.  This pregnancy was healthy.  To be safe, I went in for an ultrasound at eight months.  As I laid on the table with my greased belly, the technicians said, “We’re looking for two, right?”

“What?”

“Well, we found two fannies, so we’re looking for two heads.”

On March 4, 1977, after twenty-four hours of labor and a C-section, my sons were born.  Brent Carter was 9lb. 4oz. and 22 inches long.  Bryan Scott was 5lb. 15oz. and 20 inches long. 

Bryan and Brent, age 28 months

God is faithful.  God heard my cries.  Prayers are not always answered the way you want them to be.  I was elated to have two babies, and I never stopped wanting my first baby.  My prayer both times was, “Lord, save the baby.”  The first time, the baby died; the second time, they lived.  You walk with God no matter what.

Waiting for something you want so badly is incredibly hard.  God’s the author of my life.  He knows, He cares, He’s there for me.    

My Mom with Brent and Bryan, 1978

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Waiting

Waiting can be really difficult.  I've been thinking about how waiting is such a huge part of life.  There never seems to be a time when we aren't waiting for something.  You wait to find love, then you wait to get married, then you wait for kids.  You wait for the perfect, fulfilling job, then a better salary, then retirement.  You wait for the weekend, then your next vacation.  As soon as I finish breakfast, I wonder what I'll have for lunch.  It doesn't end.  I am growing in being attentive and content in the present, and I also continue to wait.  There are big dreams in my heart - from having a big dog, to publishing a book, to marriage and children of my own, to serving God in marginalized areas of the world - that require a great deal of patience.  

So, I thought, if I'm always going to be waiting for something,  I'd better figure out how to wait well.  With that quest in mind, I asked a few people to share stories of what waiting has looked like in their lives.  I hope these next two posts will bless you to read as much as it blessed me to hear these wonderful women share.  It seems, in all waiting, there is something beautiful in giving ourselves to the process and the One who is sovereign and near to us always.

"I must give myself completely to Him. I must not attempt to control God's actions.  I must not desire a clear perception of my advance along the road, nor know precisely where I am on the way of holiness.  I ask Him to make a saint of me, yet I must leave to Him the choice of that saintliness itself and still more the choice of the means that lead to it."  -Mother Teresa

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Band Aid

Matthew 10:42

And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.

Sometimes you give the cup of cold water to the little one,

And sometimes the little one offers the water to you.

Lately, work has required a lot of stamina and patience.  One student has a strong need for behavioral support and many interventions have been tried.  On one difficult day, I had the class gathered on the floor around our big easel.  As I began teaching a writing lesson, Riley* began some disruptive behavior.  While trying to simultaneously address his behavior and keep the rest of the class moving forward, I flipped the pages of thick easel paper and cut my finger.  It hurt, but not as badly as my strong, “OW!” suggested.  My frustration over the whole situation vented through the paper cut. 

Riley took a minute to calm down in the hallway and I forged ahead with “How to Write a Topic Sentence”.   As I taught, I noticed another student, Jocelyn, fiddling with something over by the sink.  What the heck?!  I thought.  Why is she wandering around right now?  I decided to let it go, and got the class going with writing their sentences. 

A moment later, I was writing the kids’ sentences on the easel paper as they shared them out loud and Jocelyn came up to me.  What does she want?  I was a little annoyed, but I calmly smiled and stopped writing.  “Yes, Jocelyn?  Do you need something?”  These kids are need-machines.  I give and give all day. 

Jocelyn quietly slipped a band aid into my hand.  She leaned in, smiling, and whispered, “For your paper cut.”

I was dumbfounded.  It was like time had stopped as I processed what God was doing in that moment.  In these tough times, I had been asking God to show me His compassion.  “I need to know You see me, Lord,” I’d prayed that morning.

That child’s smile, holding out the band aid with partially ripped wrapper where she’d gotten the unwrapping started for me – that was God’s “I see you.”  That was His compassion, His cup of cold water.

The cut wasn’t bleeding.  I probably would have been fine without a band aid, but I wore that bandage for the next day and a half as a visual reminder of the compassion and grace I’d received.  And when Riley came back from his hallway break, I felt a new kinship with him.  We all need someone to notice us.

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*Names changed for anonymity

The Beginning of Morning Looks A Lot Like Night

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

And in his word I put my hope.

My soul waits for the Lord,

More than the watchmen wait for the morning,

More than the watchmen wait for the morning.

-Psalm 130:5&6

It was almost midnight when I closed my journal and reached to turn off the lamp beside my bed.  “Good night, Lord,” I said as I clicked the switch and plopped my head down in the darkness.  I laughed and thought, in a few minutes, I can just say, “Good morning, Lord!”  I lay there as the clock turned one minute at a time, from night to morning.  The darkness remained the same.  Without the red digital numbers on my bedstand, I’d never guess it was morning. 

When I awoke seven hours later, I pulled on stretch pants, a sweatshirt, a winter hat, and gloves.  The sun was rising in a glorious painting of reds, yellows, and oranges, and I wanted to run in the light of it.  My breath came out in frosty puffs and my cheeks stung a little with the cold.  Why doesn’t God just turn morning on like a lamp?  Sun on, sun off.  Why does He delight in slow, measured transitions of light each day?

January in Seattle is quite dark.  Some days, it feels like the sky just goes from black to dark gray, back to black again.  We’ve already passed the winter solstice.  Seasonally speaking, it is morning now.  But it looks a lot like night.  I drive to work and home again with headlights on and no noticeable light difference in the sky.  I can’t perceive the change, but I am convinced.  It is getting incrementally lighter every day.

When I pray, sometimes God clicks the light switch on.  The other night, I was really sad and was curled up in a blanket on the couch.  I needed some community.  I called out, “God, will you please get me out of this house?”  Beep!  My phone indicated a text message received.  Right then.  Click!  Lights on!  My friend Jen invited me over for a bowl of chili and some worship with her husband and friends.  I blew my nose, kept the blanket around me, and headed out for a cozy evening with friends.

More often, it seems God likes to bring answers like He does with the dawn.  Gradually.  Faithfully.  Beautifully.

If I’m not watchful, I will believe it is still night. 

Today, I pray that I may be convinced of the morning that is here for my heart’s deep prayers.  That I may view the seeming darkness around me as the beginning of dawn.  That I may bask in the glorious shifting of sky, the healing of hearts, the barriers broken, the life restored.  Morning coming and morning fading are God’s good, well-timed works.  He is just as faithful in His promises. 

Good morning, Lord!

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Part of the View

This poem comes out of a story about my cousin Jacki's daughter Emma.  I hope it brings you a smile on this beautiful New Year's Day.  God bless you in 2013!

Small, four year old legs stretch

Bend back

S   t   r   e   t   c   h

Bend back

 

Rhythmically powering a creaky, metal-chained swing

With mounting strength and speed.

 

“I love the view,”

Emma tells Grammy,

Who is standing near

Ready to lend a push.

 

Rugged mountains stretch out beyond the playground.

Her legs work hard, carrying her higher.

 

Reaching, stretching, with all her might,

Emma throws back her head,

Declares,

“Now I’m part of the view!”