A Heart Felt Moment...

Imagine you are standing at the bow of a sail boat in the middle of the open ocean. The wind is blowing and the sails are gracefully moving about to keep the boat travelling at a good speed. You are looking over the bow and you see the water as it hits the boat, it is almost like it is parting the water as if to cut fine silk. Then you see a dolphin poke its head out of the water, you question it at first - wondering what it is doing, but then the rest of the pod appears. They are fighting to be at the front, riding the waves that the boat is making. It is an amazing sight, there must be 2 or 3 hundred dolphins surrounding the boat. They could be anywhere in the entire ocean, but they have chosen to visit you!

The dolphins only stay for awhile, but then they move on. You look over the horizon, there is nothing around but ocean. The open sea. You begin to wonder why God created so much water, but then you feel this overwhelming sense of freedom. Almost as if God created the water so that you can explore it. You have no commitments, not time nor shedules to worry about. No exams, or assignments to be due, and no books that you have to read. There are no worldly pressures, no violence, no crime, no real pain at all. It is just you and God and the open ocean. Hundreds of miles where you can see no land and you have no attachments to the world anymore. Yes, this is freedom. Just you and God.... you and God...

You look to your left and you see a small island appear. It has long sandy beaches. The sand almost looks as if it is white and it glows off of the clear blue water. There is a small forrest area that consumes most of the island, with trees and tropical fruit, a waterfall with a pool of clean fresh water. You get into your small boat and paddle to the shore - just to get a feel of what the island is all about. You reach the shore and then step out, one foot, then the other. The sand is so soft on your bare feet. It is like no other sand you have ever felt - so smooth and fine. You take time to explore every inch of the island; it is completely uninhabited. Not one footprint has touched this sand before, and not one hand has picked fruit from these trees. It is a gift from God - Paradise. You wander over to the waterfall, where there is a large pool of fresh water. You crouch down and cup your hands to bring some water to your face. It is cool and refreshing to drink in the hot sun. Then you reach down and take hold of a small pebble that you found near the edge of the water. You put it into your pocket after carefully observing its intriciate details: the smoothness of the edges and the one little spot that it has of white which seems like it was carved right into the green pebble. You walk back over to your boat and row back to the ship.

You are ready to see more, but for now, it is time to sleep. You put the pebble that you found under your pillow and you slowly drift off to sleep as the boat rocks you back and forth, back and forth....

SUDDENLY YOU WAKE UP!!! You look around and wonder why you are no longer being rocked and why you aren't even on a sail boat at all! "Where am, " you wonder? You step out of bed onto the floor. It is the same room that you have grown up in and are familuar with. It has the same smells and the same pictures on the walls. But something about you is different. See you thought that you were in paradise, but you're not. You feel robbed of your dream and you want to go back to it, but unfortunately, nothing is left of it. But wait! You remember that you put that pebble under your pillow, so you walk over to our bed and slowly lift one side of the pillow to look under it... not expecting to find anything, you see a tiny little pebble resting where your head was. It is smooth to hold, this little green pebble with the tiny white spot that seemed to be carved right into it.

You realize that the dream you had was real, and the freedom you felt was real. But now you feel robbed of it. Like someone had just come in and taken your heart right out of your chest... but left you a piece of it, just to remind you that it once was there. You try to sleep again in hopes that you will return to the dream, but nothing happens. It just fades into a little memory, one that will always be sitting at the back of your mind - but the memory doesnt ever leave you, because you have that little pebble to constantly remind you of the dream you once had...

Hey guys, I wrote this because I wanted to express my feelings in a way that people could understand. You see, its hard, and I am sure that every single one of you have had a dream that has been taken from you. They are all probably dreams different from the ones that I have had, but still, they are dreams and everybody has them! Sometimes the dreams are as little as, when you were five you wanted to be a doctor, but then you found out that you had to go to school for seven years, so you gave up that dream and aspired to become a dog groomer. (Okay, that is harsh.. but you get the picture).

All in all, if there is anything that I would like you to take from this, it is that... You shouldn't be afraid to dream... Just because some things don't work out, doensn't mean that God has left you, or given up on you... it simply means that God has different plans for your life than you imagined! Look at missionaries... do you think that most of them, at the age of five, wanted to be missionaries? Probably not. They probably wanted to be astronauts or fire fighters! But God had OTHER plans for their lives and they are living out those plans daily! And it is GOOD!

So take care of yourselves out there, and remember that through Jesus, there is freedom!