So, I’ve been home for a week and a half from Nebraska and a retreat I do not flippantly call life changing and a game changer and whatever other words mean monumental and encouraged and a little undone.
I am living my regular life of soccer, dance and gymnastics, house work, volunteering at school, church, work, child care. Yesterday morning, I almost succumbed to the scheduling monster — it was touch and go for a while there — and then Lala and I went to story time at a quaint little book store, and the reader’s voice was like a tinkling mobile over a crib, and I felt my heart slow.
Since returning, I am changed, and I am the same.
I am filled up and empty. I am energized and weary. I am enough and not enough.
Maybe you know what I’m talking about.
And, friends, I am beginning to accept the fact that I will not be able to put into quantifiable words the entirety of my Dreaming a God-Sized Dream experience, nor do I think most of you would like to embark on a 50-Part Series as I try.
As is true of many game changers, my weekend was built by profound words and quiet moments. By ever-so-slight shifts in perspective and yeah-me-toos with nodding sisters and brothers. By not only the great bigness of God, but seeing myself as his little lamb, as the child who sings loud and clear the words of the song, “Jesus loves the little ones like me, me, me.”
I learned over the weekend that a God-sized dream is filled with some contradictions. It’s mine, but God’s. Filled with the great and seemingly impossible, yet touched by the small. Asks me to be brave, yet knows I will feel afraid.
The God-sized dream in me and you isn’t about what we’ve designed after all, but about the life song the Creator’s placed within.
Where do you see beauty?
Where do you see need?
Where do you feel closest to God?
What are the absolute yeses in your life?
Where do you brush up against the eternal?
The answers to these questions and the journey to find the dream aren’t like the world’s. For in this God-sized dream, success isn’t ours to make, and it’s so different than the messages that circle around our heads, flash across our screens. It’s not about numbers and accolades and dollars, nor about posting the right inspirational posters in front of your face or reaching out to the right people.
Instead, we successfully live this God-sized dream when we follow God, obey him in the promptings he’s placed within our hearts and in our very lives and put one foot in front of the other to do those things.
For me, it’s choosing focused and tender attention when my husband tells me about his day. It’s listening to my girls and hearing what they care about even when I feel done as done gets. It’s showing up faithfully to relationships and hard conversations. It’s coming along side those in need and standing with the hurting. It’s writing here and connecting with you.
My God-sized dream is largely about doing the things I’m asked to do with a heart of love.
We all are made to sing a unique song. I cannot say what yours is or if you’ve yet discovered it, but I do know that within it is joy. Not more obligation.
And it is not the kind of happiness intended to fill you right up for yourself and yours and no more, but this joy sings for others.
It gives the gift to the world for which only you are designed. Singing the change, singing the hope, singing the blessing.
This is a continuation of my story, reflecting upon last weekend’s retreat in which a glorious group of storytellers and dreamers explored big, ridiculous, God-sized dreams. From here on, parts of the weekend may very well just be woven into my other stories as the experience works its way into the fibers of everyday life.
Linking with Jennifer at #TellHisStory.
Connecting through the power of stories written, spoken and lived
yes yes yes. i love how you came at this, Ashley. the things that we often think of as mutually exclusive or cannot co-exist are actually false dichotomies. that up-side-down kingdom thing and all.
i especially resonate with the subjectivity your words seem to encourage. we don’t have to be everything for everyone. i just hafta be me. you just hafta be you. and we can trust God to fill us with the JOY (not obligation) to walk in His purpose for our lives.
beautiful post. (oh, and i *think* i might have finally caught up on my sleep from last weekend. maybe.)
And isn’t that freeing!! To release the obligation of being everything to everyone. Ashley I am snuggled right up next to you over at Tell His Story, and oh so glad. Because I needed to know someone else, anyone else, was thinking the same as me… now I know two people are.
Lisa, grateful to be getting to know you and your deep heart through words….and thankful that we are not alone. So thankful.
Kelli, one reason I adore reading your words so much is that you are not afraid to live in the contradictions and the questions. It makes for such depth and grace and truth. I am feeling freedom in new ways as I truly begin to believe these words – that we don’t hafta be everything for everyone. Thank you, God, for that because the attempt has totally worn me out over the years. Still got a lot of figuring out to do about where and what I am supposed to be doing, but I’m glad to know it’s not everything! :-)
Dear Ashley
Oh, I truly would have loved to be there with you all, but I am nevertheless so glad that you are so enriched by the retreat! As I was reading about doing the little things with love, I realized that it is most probably the most difficult thing to do! What I see as my dream is to do everything to the glory of our Lord, by allowing the sweet Spirit to live His life through me.
Blessings and much love
Mia
Doing the little things with love — that is the hardest for me, too, Mia. And your dream you’ve voiced here — amen, sister!
Oh, yes to everything you’ve said. I’m in a season of dreaming, too. But my dreams actually seem rather small…much smaller than I thought they would be when I first began to consider God-sized dreams for myself. My small dream is to live a better story for my children and my spouse. To leave a legacy. To hand down Jesus. So, yes friend, I get the dream not being for myself alone. Love the way you speak to my heart and fill my cup.
Lori, isn’t that amazing?! The small is really so big! For truly, what tremendous significance there is in passing on the love, the legacy of Jesus! No small thing, friend. SO happy to see you today.
Beautiful, Ashley. This really encouraged me.
I’m so glad, Natalie. And what gift to see your lovely smile here.
LOVED it.
Thank you, pal — and fellow dreamer.
Honey, I believe you CAN’T be all things to all people. With deep love, grams
I agree, most definitely, Grams! Loving you, too.
Love this Ash. I agree, there is just too much there to even capture. Game changer for sure.
Thank you, Alia. Love you.
I dearly loved this Ash. I love that our lives are characterized by contradictions…it makes it so much easier to be human, so much more sane to hope in the face of adversity. I love the questions you’ve put forth here and i intend to find a little bookstore where a woman’s voice sounds like a mobile above a crib, and maybe then I will find some answers to put with them. Thank you dear one. You never fail to encourage and inspire. such love! mama
I agree, Mama. I’ve spent too much time trying to rid my life of the contradictions, feeling like they’re signs of failure, instead of embracing them. It’s good to live in that place of the upside-down, good hard, giving up your life to receive it…I’d love to know what you hear when you sit down in that bookstore. :-)
This is rich. So rich.
You’ve wrapped words around so much of what I’ve been groping to say. God bless you, Ashley Larkin. I’m so glad God made you.
Jennifer, what compliment. I so appreciate your love here and all over the place. You bless.
So true! Reminds me if the small book “Dream Giver” by Bruce Wilkinson. Loved you post. It gives me hope!
Yes – be of hope, my friend!! I have not read the “Dream Giver,” but one of the break out sessions at the retreat was inspired by that book. I’ll have to check it out. Sending love, Annie.
Ashley, this is exactly it. Exactly why I haven’t written a doggone thing YET about that weekend in Nebraska. I, too, am different but the same.Filled but empty. All of this and yet, unsure of any of it. And, I too, have found that my response this side of that weekend has been to live more deeply where I am. Thank you for helping me see that I am not alone.
It was so beautiful to meet you and talk with you and to touch the real of you that is behind the words I love so much.
Holly, whenever you write, you bring the fullness of your deep living. So let there be no rush, my friend. We are here, joyfully ready to receive whatever words you may have for us. Meeting you was among one of the greatest treasures of my time at Jumping Tandem. I so hope for more opportunities to sit in the same room and soak up time together. You are such a beauty.
Ashley, this is oh, so lovely. You’ve captured my thoughts too. That we each have a unique place and call on this world and what we bring to it is beauty, not more obligation. I came home different but the same and I think that is exactly what God intended. That we be eternally changed while beholding the person he creates us to be. Thank you for your words.
Thank you for hearing my heart here, Shelly, and this — “that we be eternally changed while beholding the person he creates us to be” … how you’ve summarized the good contradiction that I’ve been grappling to understand. Bless you.
LOVE, love, love this post, it can relate and am encouraged! Thank you~
Gretchen, it’s so wonderful to “see” you here. Grateful for your words of encouragement to me. Blessings…
“My God-sized dream is largely about doing the things I’m asked to do with a heart of love.” Of all the growing list of small and big things I love about you, Ashley, this, I think, is at the top. This is the God-sized dream that stirs most clearly and fiercely in my heart, even though I fail at it so often. You are my sister, and you have one of the loveliest hearts. I am so encouraged by your reflections here…
Oh honey, I fail so much at this, too. Perhaps that’s partly why it lands in “dream” territory. But it is my desire! And I am so thankful to be seeking after it fiercely with you, dear friend.
I am thankful for this post. It has been so difficult to completely be able to explain and share to others what I learned and how I am changed since returning from the retreat. Thank you for sharing that while life goes on like normal and sometimes its hard to cling to the dream you knew you are set forth for…its hard to keep seeing that dream as clearly as it might have been on the retreat. Kim Hyland is leading a group of beautiful women who are going to be studying Holley’s book (that we got in our bags at the retreat). I think that your post will be helpful in the study. do you might if i share it?
Janel, thank you for letting me know that you could relate…that blesses me. And I’m great with you sharing the piece with Kim’s book group. So many good words have been written about the retreat, don’t you think?! Yes, it is hard to explain and hard to keep our eyes on the truth we’ve come to believe. To agree that we have what we need in God and that the important stuff won’t be lost, that the Spirit will remind us of what we need to know…such a journey of trust, no?
I love the tone of this post . . so gentle, real, relaxed, inspiring. I can live at this pace. The way you are working in the lessons and truths of that amazing weekend. And this line . . “I learned over the weekend that a God-sized dream is filled with some contradictions.” What hope, because my life is so full of contradictions. But His will is so perfectly fit to life. Thank you, Ashley.
Kim, thank you for your words! I am continually trying to live in the contradictions, or perhaps let go and receive the fact that I’m already living them! Yes, there is such hope in trusting him to do the good work as he weaves his will for our lives. (I love what you say, “His will is so perfectly fit to life.”)
Of course, living out the truths requires effort on our part, but probably so much less than I usually try to exert. :-) Bless you, Kim!
3 weeks since #jtreat and my heart is now ready to read everyone’s link ups. Continuation is great. It’s mine but God’s rivets my soul. Thanks for saying this and other contradictions I feel. I too am changed and the same. Your words resonate.