Do Dreams Have Expiration Dates?

Something uncanny happened on the last day of February. I've waited too long to write about it.

As I drove to school on that barely-light Wednesday, I asked aloud, “What about my dreams? Can any of them be salvaged?” I don’t know if I was asking God or myself. I don’t know if a song on the radio prompted my question. I don’t know if I was thinking of my friend Tracy who had recently written a blog post about a dream that was delayed for thirty years and finally fulfilled. 

I do know the emotion behind the question was more intense than my usual morning disquiet of it’s-cold-and-dark-and-I-need-more-coffee. But once I entered the school, responsibilities jostled the dream questions to the end of the line.

After homeroom, I shooed my students to the church sanctuary for our weekly chapel service.

After a few songs led by our worship team, Seth, our seventeen-year-old student chaplain, began his message. His first PowerPoint slide revealed his topic, “From Dreams to Destiny.”

THAT got my attention.

Following the narratives in Genesis about Joseph, Seth made some really good points, which I jotted down while blotting my tears. He bravely shared some of his own dreams, such as wanting to someday have a family and own a minivan, not a dream you expect to hear from a high school senior.

I want to see Masada.

As he concluded his message, Seth said, “Even older people have dreams. Mrs. Brosius still has dreams. She wants to go to Israel.”

At that point, I came completely undone. After chapel, I spent much of my free period crying, trying to stop crying, and trying to make my face look like I hadn’t been crying.

I didn’t know on February 28, and still don’t know, if this message from God was specifically about going to Israel. Maybe it was God’s way of answering publicly the question I had voiced privately not much more than an hour earlier in my car: Yes, my dreams can be salvaged. Even the dreams I can’t share with anyone but God.

I do know I had not talked recently about wanting to go to Israel to Seth or any of my students. I don’t know why it was on his mind.

When I was more composed, I asked Seth if he had planned to call me out, or if it just came to him at that moment. He said he had planned it, and his parents had advised him not to. They thought I might find the age reference insulting. I’m not usually glad when my students ignore their parents, but in this case I sure was.

"Joseph Receives his Coat of Many Colors"
by Shoshannah Brombacher; pastel and ink. "

Last month at a writers conference, my friend Jim Watkins, shared a message called “Keeping Your Dreams Alive.” I scribbled these points Jim made as he guided us through Joseph’s life:

• The dream is received.
• The dreamer is refined.
• The dream is resized.
• The dream is revealed.

He told us “how to keep your dream alive when they steal your coat,” and quoted author Neva Coyle, “God is a refiner, not an arsonist [of dreams].”

Do you think God is trying to tell me something?

If you believe God is speaking to you about your dreams, feel free to comment and share.

Read about Tracy's dream here: http://stdavidswriters.com/dorm-room-dreams

Follow her blog here:  http://earlgreyandyellow.com

Follow Jim Watkins here:  http://www.jameswatkins.com