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 ”It is a good thing that God doesn’t show us glimpses of our future, otherwise we might not want to move towards them.


  At least this is the case with me- I know that if I had seen visions of my future self when I was a child, I would have been both incredulous and incredibly unhappy. I thought this as I walked across camp this morning, looking down at my skinny jeans and my moccasins. The only thing I that I am wearing at the moment that I would have approved of when I was seven is my moccasins and my red nail polish. I would’ve been horrified to know that I would someday wear straight leg pants like my mother does, because as a child I vowed never to wear anything that wasn’t cargo pants or flares, regardless of what may be in fashion.


  And if, as a seven-year-old girl, I could’ve seen any other piece of my life right now as well, I think I would have been equally unhappy about that.


  I didn’t want a car like this, or a job that doesn’t pay lots and lots of money and require me to wear grown-up-like skirts and heels everyday. I would have been distraught at the thought of living with my parents at the age of twenty, because when I was a child I was certain I’d own a two-story house with a parrot in every room by this age. But I don’t, and that would have scared and confused me when I was seven.


  If God had shown me a picture of my boyfriend and said, “Look, this is the man you’ll love,” I wouldn’t have understood. He doesn’t look like Jonathan Taylor Thomas or that boy from my Sunday school class, and that was my standard of handsome when I was seven.


  But when I was a child my goal was perfection, not righteousness.


  I wanted a shiny convertible, a two story house, and a parrot that could sing the ABC’s. Instead I have a car with a belt that squeals sometimes, but I’ve paid for it all myself. I wanted to always look as pretty as my Mama does when she goes out to business events; to own lots of high heels and fancy skirt suits; to marry a guy as daring as one of the adolescent idiots from a Judy Blume book I managed to get second-hand. Instead, I now spend nine months of the year dressing as a teacher and three month of the year working in ministry and dressing like fashion doesn’t exist, and I have a boyfriend who is an incredible man of God and treats me with more adoration and respect than any boy ever has.


  What I have is so very, very much greater than any plans or expectations I have ever had for myself, but it isn’t the American dream. It isn’t even what I thought MY dream was when I was younger. But it has become my dream, as I grew up and realized that my dream for my life needs to look a lot more like following God and letting Him shape me and use me, and a lot less like living for my self.


It’s about righteousness and obedience, not the worldly standard of perfection or success.”   -July 24th, 2011 8:30am (5 weeks ago)


"This ain’t my American dream
I wanna live and die for bigger things
I’m tired of fighting for just me
This ain’t my American dream.”  -“American Dream” by Switchfoot

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