Resurrection of the Dead Dream

This is the time of year that many make New Year's Resolutions.  I've never been a fan of them myself, but we've already established my weirdness.  Many have looked over the past year with satisfaction, or with a new resolve to try harder, work harder, exercise more...whatever.  But, this is also a sad time for many who have seen their dreams crushed in the last year.  Those who have struggled to keep their head above the water, and still can't see the land with the coming of the New Year.

It's time to talk a bit more about the title of this blog..."A Little Kernel" comes from a principle God taught me right after I graduated from college. I joined a ministry and moved across the country.  It was adventurous and exciting and I had BIG plans and dreams for building God's kingdom.  Needless to say I had a worldview crisis while there.  I won't get into the gory details, but I hit rock bottom...spiritually, financially, and romantically....all at one time.  I remember it as the darkest and most painful time of my life...why?  All my dreams and expectations were dying, and I was desperately clinging to them, trying to breathe a little life back into them.  That's when God broke through my thick skull with the following: John 12:24  "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain."

He was asking me to place my dreams and expectations on the altar before Him and to take my hands off, and slowly back away.  He was asking me to trust Him to take care of my heart.   So, as painful as it was, I did as He asked.  I licked my wounds, swallowed my pride and came back to Georgia and started to teach...something I thought I would NEVER do after my experience student teaching.  I watched all my dreams go up in smoke as they burned on the altar.  I won't lie...it hurt.  Then God, being as faithful to His Word, as always, showed me something splendid. He showed me that He is not only the God who desires our every dream, but that He is a God who brings life out of death...you can count on it.  He is the God of the Resurrection...shown in Jesus, and lived out in my life, as He breathed new life into my dreams...He exchanged my ashes of old dreams for ones of pure gold.

Needless to say, the next year of my life laid a foundation of healing...God showed me that I  LOVED teaching and I saw clearly that He wanted me to build His kingdom by investing in the lives of my students.  I never felt so fulfilled in all my life...and it wasn't my original plan...it was better...it was God's.

Then He did something incredible, He brought me my husband.  Within a year of moving I was engaged to the most wonderful man I have ever met...and that was gold for ashes AGAIN!

Since then, God has given me numerous opportunities to leave my hopes and expectations on the altar and trust Him to bring life out of the dead dream.  I pray that I will not hold too tightly to my hopes and expectations, but will continue to bring them to the altar for God to do as He pleases with them. When we hold too tightly to our expectations, we are like the clam that clings to it's little bit of water, not realizing the expanse of ocean around it.


So I write all this, not to bore you with the story of my life, but to encourage those of you who are down...who are clinging tightly to a dream that needs to be left on the altar.

It is also an invitation for those of you who have never known the God of the Resurrection to try Him, and see that He is good.

Psalm 34:8  Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!