The Little Girl Who Dreamed Big Dreams

I stumbled across something recently, while I was saving documents from my laptop onto a flash drive.  I found an awesome poem template a while back as part of a blog hop, and I saved both the template and my poem.  The poem itself is a little long to share, but the main part that struck me is the end…

… from the little girl who dreamed big dreams and prayed big prayers and still stands amazed that God did so much more than she ever dreamed of, whose heart is full and happy.

I texted my childhood best friend the other day.  We’ve been friends since we were 10 years old…over 20 years ago…wow, that makes me feel old!  Even though we live several hours apart now, we’ve kept in touch over the years, both online and by phone, still getting together whenever we can.  As we chatted, I thought about how far God has brought us. 

We both came from broken homes…her parents were divorced, and my grandparents raised me.  We spent hours talking as kids about our dreams for the future – dreams that included happy marriages and normal families, things we didn’t see in our homes, things that other people took for granted.  We cried a lot of tears together and held each other up through some pretty tough times.

Now we talk about our husbands – both of us married for 12 years, our anniversaries just a month apart – and our kids, two each.  We talk about our careers – she is in nursing, and I am (almost) in dental hygiene – just seven more months!  We talk about missions trips – she’s signed up for one next year, and I’m looking into a possible one.  God has brought us so far.  It hasn’t always been easy – both of us have hit some major bumps in the road along the way – but God has been faithful.  So faithful…so much more than I ever could have dreamed as a little girl in a little town in south Arkansas.

Despite all His faithfulness, it’s easy to forget…when stress takes over and deadlines loom and life runs me ragged, it’s easy to forget how far He has brought me.  But I can’t forget.  He’s been too good for me to forget.  One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my life is this: Don’t give up, no matter how bad things seem, because He is faithful.  Dare to dream big dreams, and see what He can do!