The Resurrection of a Dream and a King

Dream. Hope. Inspire. Believe. Create.

Those are powerful words that always seem to float through my head.

This week in preparation for celebrating Easter I started to pray that Jesus would show me a vision of what to do. I feel like I have been lacking in the vision department lately as far as what I should be doing with my life. Well, be careful what you pray for....

Some background info:

I feel like one of the main ways God speaks to me is through dreams (yes, I believe God speaks to me. That's what prayer is: conversation with God. So, it's not absurd to think that God speaks to me. That's how conversations work, two parties talking.). I have had many (what I would consider spiritual) dreams that have the setting of my Grandma's old house (on South in the inner city of Toledo). Reoccurring themes in these dreams are good vs. evil and the resurrection of community.

One of the last dreams I had about the house was about a big party around this old tree stump in the back yard. We were singing, dancing, and eating. Jesus was there. (I can remember counting the rings on the stump as a kid trying to figure out how old it was.)

Then the news came that the house had been demolished (really, it's probably better that way but that's another story). Suddenly my dreams no longer included the house but a beautiful garden in it's place. A community garden. Beauty from ashes.

I had never really shared these dreams with anyone other than Mike until the garden dream. I told my Mom, Michael, Matthew, and Katie all at the same time I believe. Turns out Matthew and Michael had just had a conversation about the lot being a garden. Coincidence? Probably not.

The garden dream has never really left my head but I haven't really given it much thought either...

Yesterday morning, Easter morning, Mike woke me up and said, "He is Risen!" I think he likely did this half jokingly and I think I was annoyed because I didn't want to wake up but right away I thought of Jesus coming out of the tomb and a garden coming out of the ground that used to be a house where I played as a kid, where probably half of my childhood memories come from. I just kind of let the thought pass. But it was too vivid and beautiful not to come back.

When I was getting ready to go to Mike's family Easter celebration - BAM - I got hit with some major vision aka God started talking and I actually happened to be listening (He's almost always talking we just don't stop to listen often enough). Of course I am still prayerfully considering all of this but I don't think I made it up because these are some big things that I don't think I could come up with on my own or would even consider with out Gods prompting (kind of like moving to Morocco or Amsterdam or passing out food to the homeless everyday or praying for prostitutes or flipping over tables in the marketplace).

1. Attend VLI with the intentions of focusing on urban ministries/outreach. VLI resurfaces about every 6 months and I push it back down because well, probably because I'm lazy.

2. Learn Spanish. Eww, not anything I really ever wanted to do but it was part of the vision I got. Know any good Spanish teachers? :)

3. Relocate to Toledo (Yes, Mike and I have talked about this numerous times before yesterday) with the intention of reurbanization (google it if you don't know what I mean by that - way too much info to even put a link up. Look at Plan Philly or Greater Linden Development Corp. for starters) of Old South End. The whole concept of reurbanization isn't really new to Mike and I - we had prayerfully considered doing this in Columbus but it wasn't the big guys plan for us - and neither of us want to live in suburbia forever (although I really do love Maumee or at least in my head I love Maumee). What does reurbanization look like? I think it would start with some seeds (literally). And those are the only details I have, for now.

In the mean time,

No, we are not putting our house up for sale.

No, these plans are not final.

Yes, we are prayerfully considering them. Hopefully Mike will share more of his passion/desires for city folk and music and such so, it doesn't seem like it's just me with a vision.

Yes, having a huge family in Toledo is a perk but there is more to the story (you just read it).

Yes, I've started doing a little research about community gardens in Toledo and looked at some neighborhood churches websites to see if they were up to any good (didn't find anything). Oh, haha as I'm re-reading that doesn't sound very nice about the churches. I just mean I didn't see any outreach listed on their websites. But those are things I did. The important thing to remember is...

He is Risen.

Dream. Hope. Inspire. Believe. Create.

He is Risen.