I don’t know when it happened, exactly – when I stopped dreaming. 

Perhaps it was when dreams started coming true, and I learned to play guitar and became a camp counselor. 

Or when dreams didn’t come true like when I didn’t grow up to be a veterinarian. 

Maybe it was when I just finally got old enough to see the adult life for what it really was… a slap of responsibility straight in the face. 

Regardless, someone asked me today what my dreams are. I tried hard to think of something to say(after all I find myself not really believing in having dreams any more), but couldn’t even muster up something to fake my way through the question. Couldn’t commit to saying out loud that maybe there is still a place deep in the recesses of my heart that dreams. 

It’s sad really. Not really letting myself dream for anything. I mean sure, I don’t have expectations and therefore I am not hurt when things don’t turn out the way that I hoped they might. But at the end of the day, there’s only what’s in front of you. And I don’t know if you live on the same planet I do, but what’s in front of you isn’t always good. 

The Olympic programming focuses a lot on dreams that came true – a kid doing cartwheels in their backyard dreaming of one day standing on that podium listening to their homeland’s anthem. 

My cynical self tends to scoff at such segments thinking about all of the people who dreamt of going to the Olympics but never making it because of finances or family situations or an unavoidable accident. It doesn’t mean they worked any less hard than the Olympiads, it just means things didn’t work out they way they hoped.

But that doesn’t mean they weren’t changed in their dreaming. It doesn’t mean that all of that hoping and hard work didn’t create a more capable and special human being. 

We are a culture of destination. A nation of people who just want results and want them now. Few of us revel in the journey at hand, in the ups and downs of life, and in the lessons learned along the way. 

But those are the moments that make up who we are in the present moment. 

I heard someone recently talk about how when a baby is learning to walk and they fall down or need a little extra help here and there, we don’t laugh at them or scold them or assume that they will never be able to walk. They fall and we erupt with praise and clapping for their stupendous effort that ultimately will lead to them learning how to walk! 

I think about God in this same fatherly way. We reach for something, dream for something, set a goal for ourselves, or listen to what we feel God is leading us to next. 

And we start waking. 

One shaky step after another. 

At some point we fall down. 

Our Heavenly Father, shouts for joy when we face trials of any kind. 

Because he knows that the testing produces perseverance. 

And he takes our hand and helps us back up so that we can begin walking once more. 

He lets perseverance finish its work in us so that we may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. 

So really dreaming is not such a bad thing after all because often times it is not the destination that makes us who we are, but the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful in between. 

Photo: Steep Canyon Trails, Diamond Bar, California.