God created us to dream. When we fail to dream, we rob Him of the opportunity to do great things. Sometimes we shy away from dreaming big dreams. Maybe we don’t want to ask for too much. Maybe we somehow don’t feel worthy. But over and over again in the Bible, the Lord instructs us to envision what He can do. Our job is to dream.
I grew up in Yakima, Washington, with a large extended family. We cousins were as close as brothers and sisters; we lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same church and school and often vacationed together.
After I married Wayne and moved to Kent, just a few miles south of Seattle, my cousin David, who was closest to me in age, developed leukemia. His doctors sent him to Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Although I didn’t often venture into the big city, I was determined to visit David.
Somehow I ended up at Swedish Hospital, which is connected to Fred Hutchinson by a sky bridge. Lost and confused, I wandered down a number of corridors without finding the bridge. Finally, I stopped a doctor and asked if he could give me directions.
“It’s simple,” he assured me. “All you need to do is walk down this hallway, take the first right and walk through the door marked ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE.”
Those directions did more than show me the way to my cousin. Somehow, that experience has given me the courage to walk through other doors: my dyslexia that I feared would keep me from working; my terror of speaking in front of people. God has met me at the door marked ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE and held it open for me.
Father God, thank You for the obstacles You send into my life that have taught me to rely only on You.
One of my favorite verses
Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
LAMENTATIONS 3:23 (NLT)
My husband Wayne and I were blessed with four children in a five-year span. By the time Dale, our youngest, was born, I hadn’t slept through the night in three long years. The house was in constant chaos, and in those pre–disposable diaper days, the washing machine was going day and night. My hands were more than full with the demands of our growing family. Thankfully, I was blessed with wonderful parents who visited us often. Soon after Dale’s arrival, my mother came to help.
Early one morning, when our newborn woke for his feeding, his older sisters and brother came looking for attention. Jody sat on one knee and Jenny on the other, and Ted shared space with his infant brother on my lap. All too soon, the older three started squabbling and whining.
My mother woke up and joined us in the living room. “Oh, Debbie,” she said with a smile, “these are the happiest days of your life.” Aghast, I looked at her and said, “Mom, you mean it gets worse?”
Now, in retrospect, I can see how very blessed I was. Mom had the perspective to see it then; thank God, I can see it now.
Lord, give all parents the patience, the prayer and the sense of humor they need to raise their children in Your grace.
You are the provider of my life, but just as in the story of the loaves and the fishes, You often require something to work with. Something willingly surrendered from me. Let me give You my heart, Lord. Start there, but then work with my stubbornness, my pride, my weakness—and mold me into someone whose life and words could feed multitudes.
One of my favorite verses
I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God through Christ Jesus is calling us up to heaven.
PHILIPPIANS 3:14 (NLT)
Every New Year’s Day I ask the Lord to give me a word to focus on for the next twelve months. It doesn’t always come to me right away, but I keep my mind and my heart open and wait. Generally, within a week or two the word presents itself. Instantly, I know it’s the right one, and I ask God to use it to teach me the lessons I need to learn in the coming year.
This year as I prayed, my heart was heavy. My father has been seriously ill for a long while and was recently placed in a nursing home. My prayers were clouded with worries about what the future held for him and for my mother. Then it came to me that my word was surrender. The Lord was asking me to surrender my father to Him, to give Him all my worries and fears. It wasn’t the word I wanted.
As I drove to meet my walking partner for our morning walk, my eyes clouded with tears as I tried to imagine life without my dad. But as I drove past the Sun Trust bank, I blinked in amazement. Through my tears, the sign outside seemed to read SON TRUST. I stopped the car. Now I was sure God was asking me to put my trust in Him, to surrender my will to His. It wouldn’t be easy, but I knew that He would provide the grace required for the task.
Oh, Father, how grateful I am for Your promises. I surrender myself to Your precious will.
One of my favorite verses
Your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path.
PSALM 119:105 (NLT)
It had been a difficult year for my husband Wayne and me. Our youngest son had received two DUI tickets. We’d poured out our hearts to God and prayed He would work in Dale’s life. Once Dale entered rehab, we assumed everything would get better. Instead, everything seemed to get worse. Dale lost his job and took one personal blow after another. He was sober, but nothing else seemed to change.
I’m most comfortable writing out my prayers, and day after day I poured out my heart on paper to the Lord, praying for Dale. As matters grew worse, I began to doubt that God was listening or that He even cared. Why was He allowing all this to come down on our son when he was working so hard to get his life in order? It made no sense.
Then one morning after we’d received more bad news from Dale, my pen refused to work. I couldn’t write out my prayers; it was as if God were tired of hearing from me. I must have mumbled something to myself because Wayne came to check on me. Shaking the pen in frustration, I told him my pen wouldn’t work. Calmly, Wayne poured a glass of hot water and set the pen inside. When I picked it up again, the ink flowed smoothly. I stared at it for a long time, and with tears in my eyes I recognized what God was attempting to tell me: He was working in Dale’s life. He’s set our son in hot water so that Dale can work out his issues. Everything was happening just the way God meant it to.
Thank You, Father, that You hear our prayers. Thank You, too, for the lesson that a little hot water is exactly what Dale needed.
Dear Lord, have Your way with me. My heart is filled with encouragement and hope this morning that Your love is deep enough, wide enough, high enough to compensate for all my flaws and stubborn pride. I am Your daughter, and it never ceases to amaze me that my God could love me.
There is a battle raging in me, Lord. A huge battle. A continual struggle as I head across this desert of testing. My eyes are focused on the Promised Land but my heart falters and longs for Egypt. Help me, Lord. My heart is Yours. My heart, my life, my will, my all—it belongs to You!
A few years ago, a friend gave me a gold cross handcrafted by her mother. I treasured that cross and took special care of it. Then one day I couldn’t find it. I made a careful search for it, but to no avail.
The missing cross weighed on my mind for weeks, until one Saturday I decided I’d look for it and wouldn’t give up until I found it. That morning, as I finished my prayers, I reached for pen and paper and wrote a letter to the Lord, reminding Him how much I loved the cross and asking Him to help me find it. After I’d written two pages, I put aside the prayer letter and began my search.
The logical place to start was my jewelry box, even though I’d looked there many times before. I opened it and removed all the necklaces. There, in the back, was the cross. I was stunned. After weeks of worry and fruitless searching, I found it in the first place I looked.
I clenched the cross in my hand, closed my eyes and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving. Then I heard an answer in my heart.
“Debbie,” the voice said, “all you had to do was ask.”
God, I don’t know why I turn to You as a last resort when You should be the first one I seek. Every time I wear this cross, remind me of Your faithfulness.
It just came to me, dear Lord, that holiness is obedience. Every time I turn away from my weakness and look instead to You, I am practicing the art of holiness. Discipline—especially that which involves self—is a form of worship. I can say I love You and want to serve You, but without obedience these are empty words.
My grandson Cameron loves to play soldier, so for his ninth birthday his mother—my daughter Jenny—decided to give him a military-themed party. The invitations were draft notices, and my son-in-law designed an obstacle course for the ten boys who were to attend. My oldest son Ted, who’d served as an Airborne Ranger, painted camouflage on the boys’ faces, and they ate MREs in the field. (For us civilians, that’s meals ready to eat.) The party was a huge success.
Later that summer, Cameron spent an entire day outside arranging his toy soldiers. When he’d finished, he insisted his mother take a picture, just in case she happened to meet a general. How or when this was supposed to occur was of little concern to my grandson. He instructed his mother to hand over the picture so that the army could make use of his battle plan.
I enjoyed telling my husband about Cameron’s exploits, and I have to admit that we were both impressed. Even at the age of nine, he felt he had something of value to offer others. We all do, I thought later, whether it’s a shared recipe or an unexpected birthday card to a shut-in or even what we’re convinced is a brilliant business plan.
So I’ve made Cameron’s message my own: Believe in yourself and in God’s ability to use your talents as He sees fit.
Lord, thank You for the lesson in self-confidence that my grandson has taught me.
Dearest Father, use me! Take me, flawed as I am, and use my talents, strengths, my weaknesses and all that I am to spread the word of Your love to others. To those incarcerated, to those bound at home and to those with little joy in their lives—allow me to touch their lives for You.
Several years ago, inspired by a book I’d read, I made a list of thirty people I hoped to meet one day. The list was wide and varied, including writers, motivational speakers and celebrities. Amazingly, over the last several years, I’ve met eighteen people on that list. Some of them were everything I’d expected, and others were major disappointments.
Not long ago, after one such disappointment, I was complaining to God about how disillusioned I’d been. Then God spoke to me in my heart: Debbie, you asked to meet these people and I’m happy to send them into your life, but I want you to make another list.
“Another list?”
This time, leave the spaces blank. I’m going to send thirty people into your life whom I want you to meet, and I promise you none of them will be a disappointment.
This prayer-time conversation has had a curious effect on me. Now, whenever I meet someone, I look at him or her with fresh eyes and wonder if this is one of the people God is sending into my life. I find that I’m more open, more receptive, waiting expectantly for those God wants me to meet. Since then, I’ve been blessed in countless ways. I’ve still got my original list, but it’s not nearly as important to me as the one God asked me to keep.
Father, thank You for the special people You have sent into my life. Not a single one has ever disappointed me.
One of my favorite verses
For these commands and this teaching are a lamp to light the way ahead of you.
PROVERBS 6:23 (NLT)
Dearest Jesus, help me to be faithful to You this day in all I say and do, in all my thoughts and actions. Don’t allow me to get bogged down in the “if onlys” of life. Make my heart pure so that I can serve You. Help me to be the woman You’ve always intended me to be.
My friend Sheila invited me to lunch to discuss what wasn’t happening in her career. She needed to increase her income, but nothing she’d tried had worked out. She felt a sense of panic because her son had headed off to college and she’d promised to cover his expenses. With nothing more profitable on the horizon, she took on a teaching assignment while continuing to look around. I encouraged her as best I could.
The next time we met, Sheila was beaming and I was certain she had good news to tell me. She announced that she had changed her name. She noticed in the Bible that every time God was ready to do a mighty work in someone’s life, He changed the person’s name: Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Simon became Peter, Saul became Paul. Sheila announced that her new name was Sheila the Faithful.
Amazingly, although her career didn’t progress until after her son graduated from college, she was able to meet every single tuition payment.
Sheila inspired me so much that I decided to change my name too. I thought about becoming Debbie, God’s Patient Daughter, but that just seemed to be asking for trouble. Debbie the Generous had a nice sound to it; I was sure a generous heart would be pleasing to God. Then, as I was praying for my son Dale, burdened by some of his recent decisions, it came to me: God was asking me to trust Him. So I released Dale into God’s hands and became Debbie the Trusting.
Thank You, Jesus, for special friends whose examples of walking in faith inspire me to walk along with them.
One of my favorite verses
Whatever you do, do well.
ECCLESIASTES 9:10 (NLT)
Good morning, Lord. May compassion for others become my passion. Never allow me to look upon one less fortunate than myself and feel nothing. Never allow my heart to become so calloused that I don’t hurt when one of Your children hurt. Let Your own compassion be my compassion. You shed Your blood for me. You bled all along the road to Calvary for me.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve made lists. There’s a list for what I need to pick up at the grocery store, a daily appointment schedule; I’ve even taken time to think well into the future with five- and ten-year goals.
When our children lived at home, I wrote up goal worksheets for them. Every January 1, we sat around the dining room table, filled out the worksheets and read the ones from the previous year. The tradition continues: My husband Wayne and I spend part of the first day of the year talking about the twelve months ahead. We chat about commitments we’ve already made and set time aside for people we want to see and places we plan to visit. We have financial goals, recreational ones, personal goals and spiritual ones. It’s our way of laying out the year before God, telling Him the things we’d like to accomplish and asking for His blessing in order to see them come to pass.
This last time, though, I had trouble focusing on my goals. Naturally, I want everything I do to be wildly successful, but so many factors are in play that the final outcome is completely out of my control. Some of my goals seemed more like wishes.
Then one day, shortly after the first of the year, I drove past a billboard that read: SOME THINGS NEED TO BE BELIEVED IN ORDER TO BE SEEN.
I have a new category for my goal worksheets now: “Needs to Be Believed.” It’s a list that’s growing longer every year.
Father God, thank You for the dreams
You’ve planted in my heart.
One of my favorite verses
Live creatively, friends.… Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
GALATIANS 6:1, 4–5 (MSG)
Honey, you need to find a job.” It was early 1980 and my husband Wayne stood in the kitchen doorway, clutching a handful of unpaid bills. My stomach clenched and I swallowed an automatic protest before I saw the look of regret in his eyes. We were going deeper into debt each month while I struggled to sell my first novel.
For as long as I could remember, I dreamed of writing novels. My love for the written word started early, when my mother took me to the library for story hour. From the time I was three years old, I went to sleep at night with a book in my hands. I discovered the powerful connection between the story and the reader. I could feel what the characters felt, cry with them, laugh with them. I wanted to write stories like that. I dreamed of the day when readers would hold my book in their hands.
You might be surprised to know that reading didn’t come easy to me. I was the only girl in my first-grade class to be in the robin (slow) reading group. It turned out that I was dyslexic, but back in the early 1950s my teachers didn’t have a word for it. I can remember my third-grade teacher telling my mother, “Debbie is such a nice girl, but she’ll never do well in school.” To this day I’m a slow, thoughtful reader and a creative speller.
Nevertheless, the dream persisted. I wanted to write books. When Wayne and I married and had our four children in quick succession, it was easy to stuff my dreams into the future with a long list of justifications and excuses. Then a dear cousin died suddenly. It felt as if God was saying to me that if I was ever going to write, the time was now. Life is short. Get started.
We rented a typewriter and I put it on the kitchen table. The kids would go out the door to school and Super Mom was transformed into that hopeful young writer. For two and a half years I sat at that kitchen table and pounded away on those typewriter keys, completing two full novels. Because I was doing something I loved, I was genuinely happy. Because I was pursuing a lifelong dream, I was a better wife and better mother.
For as long as I could remember, I dreamed of writing novels. My love for the written word started early, when my mother took me to the library for story hour.
But everything came to a crashing halt that Sunday afternoon. Wayne set down the unpaid bills. Together we reviewed our finances and I realized there wasn’t any alternative. I had to get a job, a real job, that would contribute to our family income.
With the newspaper in hand, I circled three positions to apply for the next morning. Even if I was fortunate enough to get hired right away, I’d be lucky to receive anything above minimum wage.
As I looked up from the newspaper, my gaze fell on the typewriter and I knew this would be the end of my dream of selling a novel. All four children were involved in sports, music, Scouts and church. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day for me to keep up with the kids’ schedules, work full-time, maintain the house and still write. I might as well kiss that dream good-bye.
What was the use anyway? Really, what chance did I have of selling a novel? Everyone said I had to know someone if I was ever to get published—an editor, an agent, someone in the business. I didn’t, and that was just one more strike against me.
Doubts battered me as I considered those three want ads. There wasn’t anything wrong with any of them, except that I had no desire to work as a receptionist or a cashier. I was born to tell stories—only now that dream had to be dashed.
I went to bed that night and tried not to let Wayne know how depressed I was. In the darkness, with Wayne sleeping beside me, I remembered the enthusiasm with which I’d started out on this venture. Despite everything, I had felt so sure God was leading me to write. I was willing to tackle every obstacle. With my Bible and a copy of Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking at my side, I had been certain that sooner or later a New York publisher would recognize my talent.
Here I was, two and a half years into the journey and I hadn’t sold a single word. Instead of contributing to our family finances, I was draining them. My dream was simply too expensive.
I tossed and turned miserably. Finally, in desperation, I silently called out to God. Lord, You gave me this dream in the first place and I’ve gone as far as I can with it. I’m giving it back. The rest is up to You.
About two or three in the morning, Wayne rolled over. “Are you awake?”
“I haven’t been to sleep yet,” I said.
He waited a moment and then asked, “What’s wrong?”
My heart was so heavy that I blurted out the truth. “You know, I really think I could have made it as a writer.”
Wayne didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he sat up and turned on the light. An eternity passed before he said, “All right, honey, go for it. We’ll make whatever sacrifices we need to make. We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”
I am forever grateful to my husband for rescuing my dream. How fortunate I am that Wayne believed so strongly in me and my talent.
I wish I could tell you it was only a matter of a few weeks before New York recognized my talent and offered me that first contract. It was another two and a half years of financial struggles before I sold a manuscript. I faced one challenge after another. The most humbling came at a writers’ conference where my manuscript was picked to be reviewed by a real New York book editor. She had the entire room laughing at the implausibility of my plot. Afterward, I went to her and asked if she’d be willing to look at the manuscript again if I rewrote it. She looked me in the eye, leaned forward and, placing her hand on my arm, said, “Throw it away.”
I loved this story and the characters, and refused to believe that it deserved to be discarded. Instead I submitted it elsewhere. Then in 1982 the long-awaited phone call came from New York. I was going to be a published author! Soon after, I wrote Dr. Peale and thanked him for writing The Power of Positive Thinking. His book was instrumental in helping me hold on to my dream. “I believe God plants dreams in our hearts so we’ll learn to turn to Him, to trust Him to see them to fruition,” I wrote. To my absolute delight Dr. Peale wrote me back with more encouragement. It meant as much to me as any advice I’ve ever gotten from an editor.
Not long ago I discovered a spiral-bound journal. The first entry read: January 1, 1973: Since the greatest desire of my life is to somehow, some way, be a writer, I’ll start with the pages of this journal.
A dream is a journey that begins with a single step and the belief that you will be led faithfully along the way.
I know that dreams are often straight from You.
Through our dreams,
You give us the vision of how we can develop our
uniqueness and use our gifts for You.
I believe so strongly in the power of dreams.
All my life I felt it was You who gave me
the dream of being a writer,
planting it deep in my heart,
nurturing it from the time I was a child,
keeping it alive in those dark years.
May my words touch lives for You.
Help us all to dream big dreams.