Passages for the Modern Accomplished Lady

Dreams- conditions or achievements that are longed for; aspirations

Every person has a dream, or dreams, that they have had, or still have.  Dreams give us motivation, focus, and determination-- all very good qualities.  Dreams also lead us to action and change. BUT, dreams have a hidden danger, one that needs to be exposed so that we can see things more clearly for us, and our children.

I love that the definition above uses the phrase, “long for”.  What do we long for?  Think about that, and what comes to your mind first.  Do you long for a washer or a dryer? Maybe you long to be an actress, a singer, or a dancer.  We watch many Reality T.V. shows that are based around people getting the chance to achieve their dreams.  Could there really be anything wrong with dreaming a dream, working hard, and achieving it?

I mean, think of the history of the United States. Wasn’t it founded on dreams: dreams to worship freely, to own and work your own land, and build a better life for your family?  But here is where the difference lies: in those times, dreams were about, and for, the family.  For the majority of people back then, if dreams got in the way of their family, they were not thought about or acted upon because the number one dream WAS family.  There are probably some of you reading that are asking, “What if my dreams are for a companion or a child?”  Then you are already dreaming for the right things. But there are some of us out there who either feel like we had to give up our dreams to be wives and mothers, and feel a tiny bit of the “what if” syndrome, or, there are also some of us who are teaching our children to have big dreams and work hard to get them without seeing the potential trouble at hand.  Now, please understand that I don’t think that there is anything wrong with having dreams, aspirations, and goals, however, as I said before, there are some hidden dangers that no one talks about that we need to shed light on.  Before we do that though, think for one second about your childhood, and ask yourself this:  Did I really give up ALL my dreams? 

Didn’t most of us, instinctively, have the longing for this, before we had the longing for this?

Or this?

I wonder if it is easy to forget because the world doesn’t say that dreams are instinctive.   The fact that all little girls have the instinct to be mothers, is ordinary, not extraordinary!  But is it? Is it ordinary?  Especially today, I don’t know that I would go as far as to say it is ordinary.   Go back to the founding of this country, the American dream, was inherently unselfish.  It did not matter that everyone coming to America had the same dream, the dream of building a better life for his or her family. In fact, that commonality of dream and purpose was an advantage, because everyone working together to achieve the same dream made it possible to make it happen.    I wonder if today, dreams have become selfish.  People no longer dream in groups, but as individuals.  “Our dream,” has been replaced with, “My dream”.   This is not the way it used to be, though. 

Take Irving Berlin’s story: His family came to America to escape the Jewish violence in Russia.  His father died in America when young Irving was only eight years old, and he dropped out of school to help support his family.  As he got older, he realized that formal work was out of the question because of his lack of education. He did, however, know how to do one thing: he could sing.  Isn’t that interesting to note that back then, the line between dreaming and necessity almost didn’t exist?  People’s dreams came out of necessity.  Today, necessity is necessity, and dreaming is dreaming.  In any case, Irving Berlin hit the pavement singing, and of course, the rest is history.  He was married twice.  His first wife died of typhoid fever on their honeymoon, and he was married to his second wife for 65 years before she passed away.  They had four children, nine grandchildren, and two great grand children.   He lived the American Dream, and his music was barely part of that.  His family came and built lives for their future family, and their story lives on through their posterity.  Irving’s dreams were for the family. People dreamed as families. 

So what is the hidden danger of dreams?  The answer boils down to what we long for, and where are hearts are.  Pondering what it was I longed for, I was surprised.  Why were the things I first thought of, not the things I professed to believe in?  Let me clarify, why weren’t “being a good person”, “understanding charity”, or “seeking eternal life” the first things to come to mind?   Why am I not longing for those?  Maybe you are, and those were the first things that came to your mind, but I have to admit that they were not the first things to come to mine.  So, I pondered on that a little more. 

In the Bible, we read,

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Is the problem that we long for a washer and dryer, or, is the problem that our hearts are set on things rather than on the ideas we profess to believe in?  Of course, after I realized my error, I had to quickly let myself off the hook by saying, “Well, of course, I long for those things.”  But then I had to ask myself this, “Why do you not long for those things so much that you think about them, more than anything else?” 

When a child thinks of a gift or toy they long for, it takes everything in their power not to think of that thing.  It consumes a child’s mind.  I wonder, if again, we are like children and allow ourselves to get consumed by things, or the idea of something, so much that we don’t dream, and long for what we REALLY dream and long for.   AND, blindly, we teach our children to pattern their lives after the same thought process.  Please understand, again, that I don’t believe there is anything wrong with teaching our children to dream.  I wonder if it would be useful, to teach them to dream about, or to long for, the right things; to show them the difference between dreams, and interests.  I think it is important for all of us to have interests.  To have things which allow us to experience joy and learn some of the important lessons of life that we only learn through our interests.  Things like, hard work, self worth, commitment, etc.   However, I wonder if we need to teach the difference between what’s an interest, which we may care A LOT about, versus a dream, which we pour our hearts into. I wonder if then, our children’s hearts would be more deeply rooted in the important things.  The question comes up, can’t you dream of both?  Can’t you have some dreams that aren’t rooted in spiritual things, and some that are?  I don’t have an answer, I have asked the same questions, and upon looking for the answers these are a few things I have found:

1.      And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

2.      No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.  Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Don’t we have to fit into  the modern world somehow?  Remember: we are born into the modern world, therefore, we are modern.  Please don’t misunderstand; I am not saying we should be strange and unapproachable.  But, let’s ask a hard question: (I know I had to, and still have to, ask this of myself) Is feeling defensive, or making excuses, any indication of where are hearts are?  I KNOW I don’t have an answer to this because I don’t know anyone’s heart but my own, but thought provoking isn’t it?

Sisters, what if we allowed ourselves to dream in groups again?  I wonder if we would accomplish more, and see more results.  I wonder if working together to dream the right things, we might become the Accomplished Ladies we long to become.  We also need to realize that we ARE living our dreams.  We have families, beliefs, and an opportunity to build beautiful lives out of those, and that is THE dream.  Look around you, look how many blessings have come about by choosing to follow instinct.  Isn’t that the dream?  I wonder: If we taught our children that we don’t have to live in the “what if” syndrome if we choose to follow our good instincts, because those instincts will take us down the path to achieving our true dreams, what would happen?

There is a popular quotation that says, “Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.”  The scriptures say,

“For I know that (God) granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.” 

The Lord will give us the desires and the longings of our hearts, and we may pay a very steep price to get them, but we will get them.  Let us be careful what we long for, and teach our families the same.  We can be in the comfort of knowing, that there may be a handful of families around trying to dream big, one simple dream at a time.

Yours truly,