Dream Big

When I was eleven years old, I remember coming across a 3D model of a house, made of graph paper. It was two stories, and each window had been carefully drawn on the outside of the model. When you lifted the roof off, the second story was separated into a layout of the rooms. Lift off the second story, and you were able to view the kitchen, living room, and den on the first floor.

My father had built that model, and five years after the day I found that model, he would show me plans for another house he is still building on five acres in northeastern Washington.

I was raised by dreamers. I was raised to be a dreamer, to strive beyond my limitations to make my dreams a reality. My creativity in writing, singing, theater, anything that I took an interest in, I was encouraged to pursue to fruition. I was surrounded by support, by people that would put dreams in my head and tell me that I could achieve them. And while I was raised to dream, I never fully comprehended how to dream. For myself, for my future, for anything past the survival of the present. So I decided to pay attention to HOW people around me were dreaming.

Learning to dream is hard. Looking into your future and imagining better circumstances is hard, especially when you are so unsatisfied with your present circumstances. But not dreaming, that can be suicidal. For yourself, for your family, for your own happiness. When you don't dream, you become complacent. You become content with your current circumstances, don't see a need to better anything in your life.

My father is a dreamer. He dreams for me, for my life, for seeing my talents affect the masses. He calls me the wordsmith of the family, has always told me to never give up my words and to always keep writing. He's told me that he can see my works on a best seller list, being performed on stages, can hear my voice over the radio. And when my daughter starts singing, he tells me that she got my talent.

There is power there. There is power in dreaming, in prophesying over your own life through your dreams. My family has shown me that there is more power over life and death in your dreams than in anything else in your life.

We survive, we struggle, but if we don't DREAM BIG, then our targets are going to be miniscule and difficult to hit. The bigger we dream, the more likely we will be to hit the center, no matter how difficult the journey is to our goal.

My parents did not raise me to be complacent. My father gave me the gift of dreaming. And that is a gift I will never waste.