My Dreams

Part of life is having dreams....  Dreams for myself, dreams for my children, dreams for the world.  All dreams seem good at the time they are conceived.  Not all dreams survive the daily grind that wears away at their heart.
My most precious and tightly held dreams would be those that I have concerning my children.  As a parent I only want what is best for them.  My own happiness is tightly bound to them.  Good or bad, that's the truth.
My fondest dreams for them fuel my prayers.  My prayers are fervent and constant.  In the waiting for those answers, my hope resides.  There is joy without bounds when answers arrive and become an established fact.  The answers do not come all at once.  For some the waiting times seem interminable.  For others results come sooner.  But at the core of all hopes and all desires is my belief in the Creator God.(the God of the Bible).  He is the giver of hope.  He is the Maker of dreams.  He is the One who has the power to feed a dream and then birth it.  He is a promise maker and a promise keeper.
I once had dreams of my own.  They were for good things.  I wanted to be a mother, a wife, and I wanted to be the best that I could be.  But I was young and my heart was unproven.  I wanted those things for ME.  It wasn't God that I wanted so much as it was what I wanted FROM God.  Dreams in and of themselves are fleeting and exist only so long as does the dreamer.  But the dreams God has for each one of us has substance, and are real possibilities.  On our own we can never dream the great things God wants for us, for our children and for the world.  Our vision is too limited and we are too self-centered.
But with our eyes on Jesus, and yielded to His perfect will, with trust in His love for us, there is a life indescribable.  A life that can be lived here on this earth.  A victory that is indisputable.  And there is joy in this. 
God's dreams are much grander than our greatest desire. 
You may be wondering what happened to MY dreams.  Well I will  tell you that in His tender mercy and great love for me that is above all else, He went to work on me.  He allowed me to cling to my small dreams until one by one they fell apart.  They had looked truly good and solid.  But outside of Him there is nothing permanent or real.  I knew in the aftermath that dreams by themselves are only as strong and reliable as the dreamer.  In place of my own dreams He offered Himself.  And now just as He once told His Father, "Not my will, but Thine." I can echo these powerful words.  I can embrace what He had planned for me and for my children before the foundation of the world.
What does this have to do with my health and Parkinson's Disease?  I will trust Him to leave me in the fire of PD only as long as He sees it necessary.  I can embrace His dream for me of a life that is whole - without the reality of disease.  I don't have to know when or how.  I just have to know HIM and trust in His perfect love.