Change of Dreams

Have you accomplished everything you dreamed of doing? I haven't. The two biggest dreams of my life were to be a stay-at-home wife and mother and to be a writer. Those dreams became reality but there were other dreams that never happened and died as time passed. At one point I thought that when my children are all in school I will get a part time job in a bakery. When my youngest child went to school, I knew getting a part time job was a foolish idea. I had too much work at home to think of working anywhere else. The writing I was doing was already a part time job at home.

My daughter dreamed of being a nurse and enrolled in college to begin training. Then she met her future husband, changed course, and became a stay-at-home mother. My son dreamed of being a flight nurse on a helicopter. He went to college and became an RN but changed his mind after working in the ER for five years and is now in ICU which is a better fit for him. Another son once dreamed of being a doctor but instead is now in business management. Another dreamed of being a long haul truck driver. He did it but learned it wasn't all he dreamed, shifted gears and went into other things. Another dreamed of having a large family and got it, not the way he expected, but by adoption.

A change of dreams is not a sign of failure but of growth. Circumstances and interests change with the passing of time and lead us to new things. Sometimes we even surprise ourselves by doing things we never dreamed of doing. In time, we see that some dreams were unrealistic and not worth pursuing. Life is a journey and a change of dreams opens the door to new adventures. 

Sneak Preview

I'm happy to announce that the wait for my latest book is almost over. As usual, it took about 18 months from the time I submitted the manuscript to the publisher to produce a finished book. This one should show up in bookstores sometime in September. 

My brother Merle was always a good story teller. He wove many stories of his experiences during forty years in missions into his sermons. People kept telling him he should put some of those stories in a book but he didn't think he had the time to do that. 

I told him to tell me the stories and I will write them. We began during the winter of 2017-18 and finished that spring. Because he is such a good story teller, it was one of the easiest books I've ever written. Of course, it is always easier to get information from a living person than to dig it out of old books and documents.

Merle left Pennsylvania in 1978 with a one-year commitment to serve at Northern Youth Programs as office manager. He never came back and is still in northwestern Ontario, although he now lives at Sioux Lookout. He took his family to Haiti in 1989 and spent that year working with a Haitian Mennonite church.

Merle is administrator of Open Hands which was launched in 2009. It is a ministry that helps people in poor countries learn to save and manage their money. This takes him around the world. The book contains stories from Merle's experiences in Canada, Haiti, India, Africa, Nepal, Thailand, and more.

Most of my books have been published by Christian Light in Virginia but after some deliberation I decided to give this one to TGS, an arm of Christian Aid Ministries, because some of the stories involve their organization.

This is the cover of the book Led By His Hand. Watch for it in your Christian bookstore or order from TGS,  https://tgsinternational.com/.

Rerun

I don't have a TV but I've heard that summer is the season when they do reruns. So today I'm going to do a rerun.

Yesterday in Sunday school the lesson was on faith and believing God can do the impossible. At the end of the class we were asked to share personal experiences of God at work. The teacher said it didn't have to be something real big, God cares about the details of our lives too. Someone shared an experience, but we were running out of time and I didn't say anything. This morning as I was walking I thought of a time I could have shared and here is my rerun from a few years ago.

The Kleenex Sign

I've known for over a year that I was heading for a point when I would have to make a difficult decision. It was easy to ignore as long as it was in the dim future. But now it is looming larger on the horizon and I will have to deal with it in the next month or two. How can I know what is the best choice?

Gideon put out a fleece and asked God for a sign. Zacharias found himself suddenly unable to speak when he asked for a sign. I'm fresh out of sheepskins and am not interested in being speechless. So I packed up my questions and went for a long walk. Somehow walking seems to help straighten out the kinks in my thinking.

I was not far down the road when I realized I could use a Kleenex. All my pockets were empty. I kept on going, sniffing and trying to make the best of a bad situation. And then! Believe it or not, there was a clean white Kleenex caught on the weeds beside the road. I grabbed it and used it, and a few steps further on I found another one.

The Kleenex did not give me the answer to the choice I must make but it did give me some reassurance that I need not rely on my own resources to make the decision. God provided a fresh Kleenex along the way when I needed it and one to spare. Surely He will show me which way to take when I stand at the fork of the road and the choice must be made. Whether it's a big decision or something as small as a Kleenex, what a comfort and blessing to know God is with me and will not let me down!

God put a ram in the thickets for Abraham and a Kleenex in the weeds for me. He gives us exactly what we need when we need it. And I am happy to report that God did help me make the right decision.