dreamin

i think most everyone dreams....in light of this and my own experience, i'm startin to think that there's a sort of dream-continuum. one end of the continuum is made of statements like "my dream car would be..." or "if i could have my dream house...." the other end is weightier - things that have eternal purpose, legacy-kinda impact...dreams of global proportion.

some could argue that the former end of the continuum consists of those that aren't really dreams....they're more like wishes and wants, and 99% of the time, i'd agree. afterall, wantin a slick car isn't quite equivalent to all nations worshipping The Lord. however, for the sake of this post, i'm groupin them all together in a general pile of "things that are not yet so."

from the time we're little, we're asked to answer all sorts of dream questions - if you could have a pet, what would you have? what do you want to be when you grow up? if you could live anywhere in the world, where you live? if you could sit down w/one person in all of history, who would that be? if you could do one adventurous thing, what would it be? if you could be good at one thing/have one superhero ability/speak any language/be in any movie/dream vacation spot.....ad nauseum? and how many times do these things actually come to fruition? not often. sometimes it's b/c we change...sometimes it's b/c The Lord changes us...it can be things we've done or things done to us... etc etc etc.... there are lots of people and lots of books out there discussing the need for big dreams and chasin after them w/all you've got - folks much more qualified and articulate than i....which is why that's not the trail i'm takin here.

the reason for these ramblings this mornin is this -- whether we want to admit it or not, i think most of us have lists of things we'd rather have....things that comprise our own dream continuums...and then we live w/o them. we just learn to live w/what we've got and keep goin. sometimes this is good, i think...even best. we learn to appreciate Grace and Life in ways we previously couldn't even recognize. other times, it's b/c we've sold ourselves short...settled...given into normalcy. still other times, i don't know if it's good or bad or neither...but it's kinda the way it is. you want somethin for so long and then learn to live w/o it for so long that it eventually gets shelved on the things-i'll-want-but-never-have.

and that's how havin children feels to me right now.

we keep pluggin along....talkin about it from time to time...readin our adoption magazine...answerin questions from folks who know about it...plannin things financially in light of adoption costs....but when it comes right down to it, it's hard for me to fully believe it will actually happen. as best i can tell, i'm not angry or hopeless or full of despair.....i simply don't have any real-life, tangible experience to tell me anything different will happen than what's happened thus far. talkin about kids and envisioning a house full of little feet and little clothes and big messes feels as realistically possible as...well...anything else on my dream continuum.