Coming Alive

I am not a dreamer. I am barely a doer and a planner. For the majority of my mature life I have only held 2 dreams, Marriage and parenthood. Career was never really a dream, it was part of a plan. In my early to mid 20s I realized those 2 dreams, and subsequently drowned in them. Not in a bad way necessarily. In a full immersion kind of way. I dove in full force and lost myself. I honestly had no idea how much until 7 years into parenting I started coming out of the baby fog and realizing there wasn’t any recognizable me left. I didn’t dress the same, do the same things, even eat the same as I had just a few years prior. I realized I needed to come back to myself. I started dropping extra activities and responsibilities I had picked up. I started clearing my closet to find clothes that I loved wearing. These things I had picked up weren’t me per se they were just things to do to feel more grown up. The truth is I am not sure how “grown-up” I want to be or God calls me to be.

In searching for who I am I found that I am an extrovert, I crave people, I thrive on being around groups, working together. I am unique, I don’t think or act like most of the people around me. Even the ones I choose to surround myself with. I don’t fit typical molds. I hate personality tests because I can be in too many different groups to quantify. I am colorful. In both outward appearance and in my uniqueness. I am intelligent. Both in book smarts and life skills. I am organized, at least in my own way. It may be organized chaos but organized nonetheless. I am creative. Not in a super artistic way but in a way where I can make things. It may be inspired or directly derivative of someone else but it is my creation. I am weird, rowdy, spunky, saucy, bubbly, nerdy, loving, kind,Joyful,  energetic, crazy, sassy and just plain Alive! That’s it i am alive! In those “lost” years of early parenting the greater piece of me died. Or at least mostly dead. Mostly dead is still somewhat alive.

I have been and continue to be on this journey of re-discovering who I am. Not just within myself but in Christ. Who God made me to be. Let’s face it, he made me unique. I am one of a kind. For better or worse. That means no one else can go where I can go, do what I can do, be who I can be quite like I can. He made me that way on purpose. Yes that’s right, even the messed up, muddled mess that I am was on purpose.

With realizing that I started seeing I had drives and passions. Skills, both learned and ingrained, to bring to the world. I had valuable thoughts. Now keep in mind I am still young(mid 20s +7= early thirties). I am not in a place in my life where I am considered an expert on anything, or even someone well versed in almost anything. So to find value in my skills and passions wasn’t obvious. Striking out trying to put these into play isn’t easy when you don’t like to ruffle feathers or offend people but are naturally bold.

Almost 9 months ago an opportunity presented itself. A gaping hole opened up. And timidly I crept into it. I saw a need and I put myself in the midst of it. I still have no idea what gave me the courage in that first moment to step up but once I did I was in too deep to back out. I ran with it, fell a few times and ultimately succeeded in my end goal. God had given me the opportunity and the right help to be a success. Let’s take a minute to realize I am a jack of many trades master of none. I try a lot of things but succeeding is not something I do often, or at least that’s how it looks to me.

About this time a close friend started “encouraging” me in the way only a really good friend can. And by encouraging I mean antagonizing me in a good way. This friend looked at me and told me I had a dream, to fill a position, and it would come true. Now 3 things about this. Firstly I had not told anyone besides my spouse of this thought/desire. Secondly there was no way it could come true, there was no such position, and potentially never would be. Lastly I don’t have dreams. I have plans. Plans can only exist when something is feasible. This was not.

Flash forward months of me really wanting to throw things at my friend when it would come up. This friend invited me to see a movie, The greatest showman. However it was prefaced with “you may not like it as much as I do, you’re not a dreamer.” I could live with that statement, it was true. I still thought I would like it though, so we went. Now it’s hard to say exactly how truly deeply the movie touched me. There are several moving pieces to this and some of it is a whole different story entirely. After seeing it I wanted to watch it 3 more times that day, but the opportunity didn’t exist. The very same friend hooked me up with the soundtrack(are you beginning to think I only have 1 friend). It’s in my car and I listen to it almost exclusively. While I love many of the same songs everyone else does (this is me, from now on, a million dreams), my favorite is Come Alive.

I have been trying desperately to process why this song means so much to me. In the context of the movie it’s the real start of Barnum’s circus, but what about my context? What is it that resonates with me?

“You stumble through your days

Got your head hung low

Your skies' a shade of grey

Like a zombie in a maze

You're asleep inside

But you can shake away

'Cause you're just a dead man walking

Thinking that's your only option

But you can flip the switch and brighten up your darkest day

Sun is up and the color's blinding

Take the world and redefine it

Leave behind your narrow mind

You'll never be the same”

I realized I am living this right now. Trying to figure this out hasn’t been easy, so I sat down and started writing, feeling like I was just chasing wild geese, but the reality is where I started, both in life and in writing this, is exactly where this song starts. It nailed me between the eyes, the honesty of who I am and where I am in my life hits like a ton of bricks. But wait, there’s more….

It’s an invitation! It doesn’t stop there, where you’re barely waking up. It goes deeper, broader, louder.

“Come alive, come alive

Go and light your light

Let it burn so bright

Reaching up

To the sky

And it's open wide

You're electrified”

For years in church I have heard all the comparisons of Jesus being a light in the dark. We’re supposed to let the love of God light our lives and carry that light into the darkness around us. But how has always been the part that stumps me. I have never felt God leading me across oceans, into slums or sex trafficking rings, or lots of other “dark” places. I know people who have and I applaud and support their efforts all while knowing firmly that’s not God’s call in my life. So while I am realizing I need to allow God to burn more brightly and intentionally in my life I struggle as to what it is I should be reaching for.

“When the world becomes a fantasy

And you're more than you could ever be

'Cause you're dreaming with your eyes wide open

And you know you can't go back again

To the world that you were living in

'Cause you're dreaming with your eyes wide open

So, come alive!”

There it is, that dream! That stinkin’ unattainable dream! Slowly but surely God has been trying to teach me what it truly means to dream with him. It’s ok that something doesn’t exist, or even if it doesn’t look like what I think it needs to in the blueprints I have drawn up to go with my plan. When God gives us a dream, it is what he is asking us to run after, to pursue with everything we are. The bonus of that is we’re not running after this kind of dream alone. Hand in hand God is in it with us. Some days for me that is more like when I run with a reluctant child and it borders on dragging, but with God he makes sure we get there eventually.

I think by far my favorite line in this song is “and you’re more than you could ever be, cause you’re dreaming with your eyes wide open.” Again, I don’t dream. But what if I did. What if I gave into the dream and threw myself into it, not just with eyes wide open but heart wide open? How can I ever “be” more than I could ever be? Oh wait, what about that story with the loaves and fishes. You know the one where God took a single child’s lunch and turned it into not only a meal for a convention, but had leftovers? What if I put myself in God’s hands with this dream and let him do that to me? That thought is both simultaneously thrilling and nerve racking. Did I mention I like control? That means an awful lot of letting go. That is one really fantastic outcome though.

So the song doesn’t end there, which is great, because I tend to not get things on the first time through. I typically need a little more coaxing. So here it comes.

“I see it in your eyes

You believe that lie

That you need to hide your face

Afraid to step outside

So you lock the door

But don't you stay that way”

You believe that lie. Yes you, yes “that” lie. It doesn’t matter who you are we each have one lie that is pervasive in our lives. For me the fact that I am a jack of all trades, master of none, and young on top of it color everything I do. It leaves me in a place of inferiority. I do not have what it takes to follow this dream to fruition. Whatever our lie is it keeps us in a place of captivity. Until we let God pull us from our own prison.

One of the ways God does that for me is often through my friends, yes I do have more than the one I keep mentioning. That’s why I love this next part so very much.

“No more living in those shadows

You and me we know how that goes

'Cause once you see it, oh you'll never, never be the same

We'll be the light that's shining

Bottle up and keep on trying

You can prove there's more to you

You cannot be afraid”

So my friend comes along side me, admits their weaknesses, shame, hurt, vulnerability, etc and pulls me up. Isn’t this what God intended for us, as believers, to do with each other? Live life together, completely open with each other. The good, the bad and the ugly. When we go at it hand in hand knowing we’re flawed but together; that’s it, we can do it.  The truth is I have never met a perfect person. The only perfect person I know God ever used was Jesus. The rest are just like me, a muddled mess.

One of the best parts of this song is the music itself. It drives you. It brings you up. It’s really hard to listen to this song and not be pulled into the power of the music...if you’re listening. That’s the way God is, when we get on board with His dreams/desires for us we can’t help but be carried away.

So circling back to my “dream”. I am trying to learn to admit that this is a dream of mine. That God put it in me for a reason. That he has put in me the minimum training and skills required. He will continue to grow me to fit this dream in his timing. I won’t always see it coming either. He’s snuck things in over the past few months that I can look back and see, but I had no idea in that moment what was happening.

Last thoughts on the song. As it comes back from the chorus it offers one final piece of our invitation.

“Come one!

Come all!

Come in!

Come on!

To anyone who's bursting with a dream

Come one!

Come all!

You hear

The call

To anyone who's searching for a way to break free

Break free!

Break free!”

This is God’s truest invitation to us as believers, to join him. To break free from our self made prison of lies, to dream with him.

I am still working on what it looks like to walk that out, but I am so very excited about the dream.