The Place Where My Dreams Were Born

One day I realized something about where I've been living in this current season of my life. I was looking back at my dreams that have already been “birthed” while hoping for even more of my dreams in life to come alive. Reflecting on this past decade (my thirties, in case you were wondering!), in this metropolis that I call home, I’ve found myself living in the place where my dreams are born.

A couple of years ago I was disappointed to be turned down from an opportunity I had hoped for, although I know without a doubt that it was God closing that door. It reminded me of another closed door in my past.

When I was 16, I auditioned for my school’s elite choir. Coming from a musical family, I had been in various choruses over the years, and I had hopes of qualifying for this group. I was devastated when I didn’t make the cut. I went home that day and sobbed, awakening the next morning to see how swollen my eyes could look after a torrent of tears. (Trust me, that’s not the last time I have awakened to swollen eyes after a night of crying. I've known my fair share of disappointment.)

Several years later, in my early twenties, I wept with grief because I felt passed by. Friend after friend walked down the aisle to say “I do” while I was just the bridesmaid or cake cutter or wedding guest. I wanted nothing more than to be a wife and a mom, but I couldn’t find my special someone.

I also had a dream of writing. In elementary school and middle school I was an avid reader, and I began to write my own stories, dreaming of writing books one day. I remember working on a non-fiction book in college (I never finished it); and I also remember feeling the hard kick of rejection when an article that I poured my heart into was turned down from a magazine I submitted it to. For many years, I feared rejection as a writer.

A couple of moves across state lines brought me to where I am today. First, as a single young woman I moved from Tennessee to North Carolina, where I hoped I would find that special someone – and there I did, in fact, meet my husband! We were married within a year of our first date, and a few years later we moved to the Washington, D.C. area for him to pursue schooling and a new career.

One day, we ventured to the other side of D.C. to find the hospital where my husband had been born. He’s older than me, and I realized that when I was crying my eyes out in my early twenties, wondering where my husband was, God knew that he had been born in Washington, D.C. decades before, and that I would meet him soon enough.

A year after moving to the D.C. area, I made a spontaneous decision to attend a writing conference hosted by my church. It was one of the most pivotal points in my life: I entered the building on Friday night with a secret tucked away in my heart: I want to be a writer one day. I exited the building on Sunday afternoon with certainty that I am a writer. I even had an idea for my first book, which I published 15 months later. Find it here. Later I wrote a book to help others with their publishing goals! Did you know you can read the first section of each book for free on Amazon?

While living in D.C., we learned of a ministry in the heart of the capital city called David’s Tent. A humble white tent camped out on the National Mall, first a temporary place of worship, now it is there for the foreseeable future, hosting a continual love song to the King. At the time I publish this post, they’ve been worshipping nonstop for several years! My husband and I would visit there to join in worship, and we began to think about how I could lead worship there. The day came, twenty years after feeling musically rejected by my school’s choir, when I would occasionally lead two hour sets of worship. My voice and my guitar together, making music to my King in the heart of Washington, D.C. The girl who once felt insecure about singing began to sings songs of adoration to her Heavenly Father, in a public place where any jogger or tourist could hear. (I did this for a year or two, then a new baby and a move further out from the city slowed me down.)

Speaking of jogging, I enjoyed running when I was growing up. I fell away from it in my twenties and early thirties. Then it was here, in Washington DC, where I caught the running bug from some friends, running

One reason I enjoy running is that it’s a physical reminder of the need to have endurance in this race that I’m running (like I wrote about here) as I’m persevering toward the things I believe that God has called me to. God has called me to build our family (fighting through infertility, being determined to have a healthy and strong marriage, learning how to parent well). I believe that God has called me to be a writer, even though there are countless challenges along the way. I’m learning that I need to run the race that He has set before me – not somebody else’s race, not a race that seems good but isn’t from God. I need to persevere and endure in this race set before me .

The Washington DC area, it turns out, is where so many of my dreams have been born. My husband was born here. My books were born here. My songs were born here. Our first child was born here. Career dreams are being born here – for my husband, and for me.

When I feel disappointment because an opportunity doesn’t happen, I’m learning to wait on Him. Just like an opportunity that fell through one winter, bringing me a lot of disappointment, only to be followed by God opening up a more fitting opportunity for me. I’m learning that my life’s story is a story that only God can write, that He’s taking feelings of pain and rejection, hopes deferred, and slowly but surely bringing them all to a place of fulfillment and fruitfulness. God is such a good storywriter, and it’s because of Him that my dreams are being born.