Living a Dream

You can learn a lot from a nine-year-old.

One evening, I was feeling out of touch with my life, and more than a little discouraged. It had been a hard day at work; the traffic was snarled on the way home. Earlier in the evening, we’d had an unusually contentious meeting for Cub Scout den leaders. I’d had about 20 minutes or so alone before my son, Alex, came home from a school carnival.

Just as I began to feel particularly miserable, Alex came in and sat on the couch beside me to watch the World Series. He’d had a great time at the carnival, and showed me the trinkets he’d won for tossing rings, shooting baskets, and throwing baseballs. We sat quietly for a few minutes, then he said, “Mom, what was your dream when you were a kid? What did you want to be when you grew up?”

On the day I felt like I barely had a life, let alone a dream, my son is asking, “What was your dream, Mom?”

I had to think about that for a while, I told him. What was my dream when I was growing up?

I’d always envied those people who said they knew, at the age of five, that they wanted to be doctors, or actors, or firefighters…and then went on to become whatever they’d dreamed of.

“Well,” I told him, “I didn’t really have only one thing I wanted to do or dreamed about. I wanted to be a lot of things – a teacher, a singer; I wanted to be a baseball player, but girls couldn’t do that when I was a kid. I wanted to be a mom someday, too.”

Just as I was coming to the realization that I hadn’t really done anything worth thinking about, at least as far as a “dream come true” life was concerned, Alex said, “Well, Mom, it looks like you got to live your dream.”

“What?” I was a little startled by that statement.

“Sure,” he said. “You’ve done all of those things.”

As I thought it over, I realized that he was right. I’d taught Sunday School, helped him and my older son with their homework; and I wrote training materials and taught some classes to new employees at work from time to time. There’s the teacher.

I sing and play keyboards in a praise band at church. I’ve sung and also played the flute at weddings. There’s the singer.

I played softball when I was growing up, and played on the church softball team several years ago. Now, I played baseball with my kids. There’s the baseball player.

I have two sons that I adore. There’s the mom.

I believe that God has a specific plan for my future. Life is good.

Success isn’t really measured in terms of everybody knowing your name (though, as the song says, sometimes you wanna go to a place like that); or having the things money can buy (though those are nice, too).

Success, to me, is measured in terms of having taught your children to treat others with kindness and respect – and actually seeing and hearing them do it when they don’t know you’re watching or listening. Success is measured in terms of being able to look back and realize that, even in the smallest way, you have lived dreams one day at a time, one dream at a time.

So, I’ll keep dreaming and accomplishing those dreams, living them one at a time. I may not get rich and famous doing it – but who knows? It could happen.

In a ten-minute conversation, I went from having a very unsuccessful life to realizing how truly blessed I am!

You can learn a lot from a nine-year-old.