Will Encourage Me to Dream

This is one of the things on my list: Will encourage me to dream.

Tonight I had dinner with a family that is dear to my heart, and one of the purposes of our get-together was to look at my resume and talk about how to network. First of all, I learned that the rules in my head about resumes are now longer applicable, due to my personal life experience as well as technology changes.

Then came the hard question: what do you want to do? Those of you who know me well know the answer to this question. I want to be a wife, to care for my husband and our home. Of course, in order for the caring for my husband to happen, I have to have a husband. Not my current status, so moving on...

We spent quite a bit of time looking at how to rework my resume, and I have my work cut out for me. This will be a fruitful process, but it's certainly work. However, when we got to the question above, I could list off the things I've had experience with, things that I enjoy: nanny work, administrative assistant work, possibly ministry. The the question came of what, if any, other areas have I thought of.

I think I surprised myself more than I surprised my friend. I talked about computer stuff, things like monkeying with the BIOS on my own computer to make it do what I wanted, programing Excel to randomize the alphabet so I could generate coded messages, taking apart my old NES to make it work properly and then putting it back together. The result of this conversation was that I should look into this line of work (computer programming, etc.) to see if it's something I would enjoy as a job. Options were highlighted and tools given for searching out how to make that happen.

I was given so many tools tonight, and I need some sleep before I can use them, but as I was driving home, I realized that this couple really was encouraging me to dream. And at the end of it all, they looked up at me and said "You never know, you might work a job that you think is a very unlikely fit and find your husband." These friends get me! They understand what my heart longs for, and that whatever I do until then can or might be a part of getting to the fulfillment of that longing.

What I learned about being encouraged to dream tonight is that sometimes such encouragement comes in the form of a kick in the pants, but it is always well-meaning, and comes from those who know me well enough to not only encourage the dreams I know I have, but also to encourage me to dream outside the box. They know me well enough to validate the dreams I have by not calling other dreaming 'better' or 'higher,' or my longing for a husband 'not enough.' The more is not what matters.

This encouragement to dream also comes with a kick in the pants telling me that some of the jobs I've applied for are not at all what I should be looking at. Now I will say that part of some of those have been driven by a need to find work and pay bills, and it's so hard to wait and not be content with something that isn't the right work for me. But I know that I have to trust that God will provide, and I will find the right job. Tonight was a place of being given tools to search for this right job, and a blessing of being told not to give up.

As with each part of my 'list,' tasting a little experience of this fills my heart with even more longing. If I can find good friends who can do this in my life, I know that God can put this into the character of my husband. I will continue to dream!!!