Many, many year ago, back before emails, Skype, Google, the internet, texting, cell phones, yes, even before TVs, and walking on the moon, and all sorts of other commonplace things, I had a dream. And in my dream, I was going to grow up and be a writer. Well, not just a writer, exactly. I was going to write poems. And get them published. I would become well known and travel around the nation, speaking. I had this glorious life all mapped out. I didn’t just dream, I wrote. Poems that is. And sent them to publishers so they could send me back rejection slips. I had quite a collection of them as a matter of fact. I don’t remember when, and I don’t remember how, and I certainly don’t remember why, but I stopped writing poems, stopped dreaming about becoming published. Got a firm grip on reality and grew up.

Fast forward a few years and we became foreign missionaries. I’ll never forget the very first prayer letter that I wrote. I made sure it had the requisite number of verses sprinkled liberally through it. After all, as new missionaries, people needed to see how spiritual we were. Someone who knew me well sat me down and had a long talk with me. Don’t remember much of what they said, but do remember that they expressed shock that our new mission board hadn’t given us any training on how to write a missionary letter. I had this other friend whose husband had to write news letters each month. They were in full time Christian work. He would write these masterpieces and she would toss them in the wastebasket without even reading them. He was crushed! She became my model. Every letter I wrote, I wrote to her. If I could just get her to read my prayer letter, the rest of the world would be easy.

The years rolled by and one day my dear uncle told me how much he appreciated getting those prayer letters that my husband wrote. How could he say that? How could he think that? Did he think so little of me that I was incapable of writing anything good?

Between the age of 35 and 40 I went to school. Got my degree. Somewhere in there I took a class on major American authors. Very interesting. Near the end of the semester we were assigned a paper. We had to write one more (final) chapter on any of the books we had read for the class. I mulled it over and over in my mind. Knew right away which book I wanted to “complete” as it were. But just how to say it was a challenge. Then when I got everything all lined up just right in my head, I sat down and wrote the whole thing out in one setting. Turned it in and got an A. In fact, the teacher chose to read my chapter to the class. She said the author would have really liked what I did. Felt pretty good about that.

Took another class.  This one was a poetry writing class.  At the end of the semester the teacher challenged me to write a Christmas carol.  Yeah, right!  But I did, and my husband helped me set it to music.  And I blew the teacher away.  Got an A of course.

Slowly one and then another began suggesting that I write a book. Me? Write a book? Don’t be silly. “We’re so busy living this life, we don’t have time to write about it!” became my pat answer.

Many years later I decided to start writing a blog. Not a book exactly, but maybe it would suffice. And so I blog. Mostly for me. I do let others listen in to my one-sided conversation. My blog is a couple of light years short of going viral. No worries there.

So that’s what happens to dreams. They get pushed aside by life, and then they may come back in another form. It’s funny how that works.