Dreams and Sketches...

I'm beginning to sketch; my inspiration is returning. I'm dreaming again.

I'm dreaming big.

It was a little over 2 years ago when a blogged about my first dream of Tony since his passing. And in that dream Tony brought me paint cans - cans of 3 primary colors - to be used on the big blank canvas representing my life without him.

It's taken me this long to reset my eyes from that big white canvas; it's as if I was blinded to any color. And it even took a while for me to even see beyond it's "blankness" to remember the beautiful paintings, my very own art collection of my life, leading up to and during my time with my husband. Those are still coming back into clarity as I reflect on my blessed beginnings and my blessed time with Tony.

Blessed.

I feel as if it's time to start on the next piece in my collection. It's time to start thinking about what's it's gonna look like, what dreams it will unfold.

So, what am I dreaming about? As my pastor Andy Stanley says, "What are you working on big?" What keeps me up at night? What do I think about when I am inspired to make an impact on this world, when I think about the legacy I want to leave?

Well, lots of things, really.

I want to continue emptying my cup into the lives of college students and young 20-something women. I am convinced that if these girls go hard after God at their age, there is no telling how much further and farther they can go for the Kingdom in their lifetime. There's no stopping this generation. I'm a firm believer, and I just wanna be a part of it.

I want to keep learning and growing and being challenged at my dream job. I shake my head often as I thank my God for such an amazing place to work; it's really hard to refer to it as "work" for I enjoy it so much. I know my future is in the Lord's hands, but I certainly hope my future includes a long career in ministry at Buckhead Church.

This one's a stretch and a little hard to talk about...but, I want to be a wife and a mom. Yes, that means a wife, again. Now, I know this is gonna require some extra large "big girl" pants to even have the courage for the d-word...d.d.d.date. Ha! But I have given myself permission to desire for God to bring me a "kinsman redeemer" like He graciously gave to widowed Ruth in the Bible. So, pray for a Boaz for me, if you'd like, but even more, pray for my complete TRUST and contentment to be in Jesus.

But even more, my big dream, my really big dream that only God can make come true...well, that involves women I've never met, women I may never meet, women in totally different circumstances, women who live so completely opposite of me, women who may or may not know my Jesus, women I have little in common with...except for sharing the deep pain of loosing a husband. These women are widows like me.

Yet, they live in absolute poverty.
They live in countries where women are not valued.
They live in cultures where when they lose their husbands, they are pushed to the absolute margins of society.
They not only live with the pain of loss, but they live devoid of hope of anything ever changing in their lives.
They feel as if they have nothing, no one to care, no one to come alongside and lift them up...out of the pit they know as hopelessness.

And, there are over a million of them. Out of the 2.45 million widows in the world, almost half live in absolute poverty, poverty like we've never seen or experienced here in the States.

And that, that's what breaks my heart. That's what bothers me. That's who I think about when I daydream about my life's purpose.

And my dream, my heart's desire, is for God to open a door for me to help them, to come alongside someway, somehow. I want to share their lives, to tell their stories. I want to love those widows considered the last and the least, those widows on the margins, I want to love those widows...on the edge.

And I don't know how. I don't even know when. I'm in the very infant stages of a plan, a sketch. I do know that the Bible calls us to care for widows in distress. And there are over a million of them. This Saturday, June 23, is International Widow's Day, birthed out of what has become in the last few years as the "United Nations Plight of the Widow."

So, I'm writing this to ask for prayers for my dream and for God to lead me in His timing to what I am to do. I don't write this to make anything of myself; I'd most certainly never have put this on my "wish list" of things I want to do when I "grow up."

But these women have been impressed on my heart. These women, they need Hope and they need livelihoods restored and they need Jesus. And someone's gotta do something. Perhaps I'm one of those someone's.

Someone.

All I know for sure is that my life is not my own. I want more than anything for my dreams, my life canvases, my life's impact, to reflect the One I live for.

Dearly loved, sketching,
Melissa