Crossing off #14

I'm a dreamer and I often set super unrealistic goals for myself.  

I am also a perfectionist whose worth is far too often tied up in what I can do and how well I can do it.

I am a 'good girl' who doesn't want anyone catching her making mistakes/being weak/screwing up.

But this year, I am trying something new.  It's called grace.

This year I am trying to allow myself some breathing room.

In her book, The Do What You Can Plan, Holley Gerth encourages us to set a goal that is short term...a small goal, and then cut it in half.

Last week our assignment was:
Do one thing to move forward in your God-sized dream. You get extra credit if it’s simple, small and takes just a few minutes.

If you've read my God-sized dream you may recall that there isn't a single item on that list of dreams that isn't HUGE!!  {I wrote it before she started giving us assignments}

One goal I didn't write down was my desire to finish unfinished projects before I get going on new ones.  There isn't a huge list, but it's daunting enough.  My husband threw out a challenge.  We've been talking for the last year about celebrating our 20th anniversary (#14 on The List).  We decided on a cruise.  He told me that if I could get our accounting caught up on our farm books we would book one.

That was a challenge I couldn't pass up.  So I rolled up my sleeves and got to work girlfriends...a cruise was calling my name.  I petered out for a few days and then pulled up those bootstraps and kept going...I got to the end of September and realized that all I had left to do was file that GST report and in the government's eyes...we were caught up.

So on Tuesday last week, when Holley gave that assignment, guess what small thing we did?  We filed that report and booked ourselves on a cruise people!!!  It only took  a few minutes for that report to get filed even though hours of work had gone into getting to that point.  I still have a bit more to do to get to year end and I just got the paperwork I need to get there today.

Not only that, but my diligence and discipline in that matter spurred my husband on to start the ball rolling on another two of the dreams on that list!  One domino goes down and more have to follow.

That wee bit of success is heady stuff.  I know there will be kinks in the road.  There will be roadblocks and fatigue.  However, I am beginning to believe that just maybe these dreams aren't just ours, they belong to God and we are his and I am going to keep moving forward.

This is the ship we're going on  ms Maasdam

of Balance, Dreaming and Seasons...and Moving Forward

It's 2:15AM and I should be sleeping but my head is whirling with thoughts about God-sized Dreams.  I'm part of that dream team and I sort of wonder how I got there...except that I have this ginormous dream, definitely God-sized.  You can read the whole crazy thing if you want, it's over HERE.

I wonder if any of it will come to pass because I am my own worst enemy.  However, a dear intercessor/mentor/friend/spiritual mama prayed over it and she is excited about what God is going to do and she told me the order in which she is going to pray for these things to come to pass.  It makes a difference when someone is standing with you.  And then several of you dear readers have told me that you think maybe I'm a little crazy but you're going to support me anyway.

And so I will go dream-chasing...

I strive for order and balance and perfection and fall way short on all of it, because, after all, life is a wee bit messy out here on the farm with six kids running around, home school stuff, farming, pastor-ing, music lessons, livestock and the dogs howling at the moon.  There doesn't seem to be space for dreaming and balance.

I read recently about balance.  How this striving for balance may just be a bit of a lie that we've bought in to. Because if you're going to go after something, there will a season that most likely won't be very balanced.

Like training for a marathon, or giving birth, or doing NaNoWriMo or harvesting your crop.  There are seasons where you have to push through and just do it NOW, because it is time.

And then there is time, like Holley Gerth says in her recent POST, to just do the next thing.

That is sometimes the hardest thing to do, because it brings us one step closer to completion and sometimes that's the scariest part.

the what-ifs set in:

- what if I write this book and no one wants to publish it, or even read it?
- what if I go to the trouble of recording this CD and no one wants to listen to it?
- what if I lose all this weight and then I don't have the money to buy new clothes?
- what if I finish building this chicken coop...I will have to buy chickens and tend to them?

There is responsibility that comes with finishing a project.  Like the chickens, there may be success to deal with, we may have eggs to sell, which requires washing, candling and handling and marketing.

If I finish recording that CD and people love it then I may have to do tours and concerts and sign contracts.

Sometimes the fear of success can be more debilitating than than the fear of failure.

So then what?

You do the next thing.

You keep moving forward.

Because someone wisely wrote that perhaps we need to define success by our willingness to obediently follow God's call on our lives and not worry about the results of that obedience.

Someone will probably not like it that you obeyed.

That is not your problem.

Moving forward through the seasons of just do the next thing and the press through it and get it done are what it will take to see your dream through.

Dream we must.

Move forward we must.

Join us on Tuesdays over at Holley's.  Download her book from Amazon, "The Do What You Can Plan".

Start dreaming if you haven't yet

and KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

update on my dream state:

My husband gave me motivation to get our farm accounting up to date.  Once all that is caught up it should release some funds that the government currently owes us.  He said that we could go on a holiday (#14), just the two of us, if we could get all that accounting caught up by the end of January.  I finished June today!!