The most ordinary dream.

I wondered mindlessly through instagram one morning in the same way I tend to.

Wake up, sit, stare, scroll, “wake up”.

But this way of waking up always leaves me in a “place”. You know the place I’m referring to?

The place where you wonder how some people ended up where they are, thriving, living their best life, traveling around, and yet you sit on the same flea market chair you bought 5 years ago and wonder about the path you’re on.

How did they get there and I’m still here?

It’s almost as if that thought has been my anthem non-stop for so long.

I felt an interruption in my spirit with the Lord that caught me off guard. I heard Holy Spirit in that moment. “You’ve stopped looking at your dreams but instead looked for everyone else’s approval. Go back to the beginning.”

I closed Instagram for a week. It was almost instantaneous to just delete it.

Interestingly I found that every time I automatically opened my phone to look at that app I was harnessed by Holy Spirit saying, “look at your dreams”.

I’d made a habit of staring deeply into the success and excitement of someone else’s life instead of seeing the goodness of God in my own.

I can’t come expecting Jesus to meet me in a place where I’m simply not looking at what He’s handed me to steward, but looking at what someone else may be able to offer.

An offer of unstable and unreliable, of inconsistency and photos that don’t tell me the full picture and never ask me to trust. Yet, I trust it more than my own story, the one written by my most trustworthy Friend.

I live in a triplex, next door to a duplex that me and my husband both own. No, it isn’t in the part of town that is thriving and nobody is jumping at the opportunity to live in our neighborhood, but there is something so special about it.

I finally tasted its goodness this week when the lady across the street meandered to our door one evening. She is always on her porch smoking. Never talkative but aways there. After a long talk with our new friend, we realized a sense of security we felt with her. She’s always on the porch, a watchman of sorts for street and I felt security that I didn’t know I lacked.

We had a friend drop by and leave a gift card to a really nice restaurant so Cody and I could have a “last horrah” date before our babe comes in just under 2 weeks. She knew we needed it before we did. The two of us dined like a King and Queen and acted above our means in the most fun way possible. Here I was, humbled by this amazing friend of mine who has partnered with me in so many good and bad seasons of life, not to mention the one I’m walking in now.

I made a pot of “lazy taco soup” (as I call it) on Tuesday night and for some reason remembered that my neighbor to the left (in the triplex) works three jobs and always manages to be a certain type of wonderful in every situation. We shared some soup with her because it just made sense and it was too much for just me and Cody to eat.

One of my closest friends and I went to run some errands and ended up at the indoor mall in our town that seems to be deteriorating at every turn. We popped in because they have Great American Cookie AND Auntie Annes in one place. We reminisced on how it was when we were little and both (pregnant and unashamed) indulged in a cookie AND pretzel snack. It was such a treat. PLUS, she paid.

I went to work and found myself laughing more in the day than worrying or fretting. Not because my job is perfect and nothing bad ever happens, but because I saw who I worked with. These people who are people but hilarious to boot and find me funny too (which is always a confidence booster until you are in other crowds who don’t think you’re as funny… i digress).

I don’t have to be in the know or stare at a picture and hope that one day my life will be at that level when it is so perfectly ordinary.

There, I said it.

Ordinary.

Dreams come from a place of knowing what we love and not stopping to stare at what everyone else will love with you.

I love my neighbor who smokes a little too much, she makes me feel safe. I love my neighbor who shows me the magical art of kindness no matter what. I love my friends who know when I need a date night with my husband before our first baby arrives. I love my friends who live on my street and take me to the mall for a cookie and a pretzel and understand the weird part of living on our “not so desireable” side of the tracks. I love that I work a job that has people who make me laugh and laugh at me too, man it takes the pressure off.

I miss it when I stop looking.

When I start looking at my life and blaming the ordinary that Jesus has handed me to steward saying it isn’t enough. When will anything ever be?

Will a perfect job? no

Enough attention? no

more more more? no no no.

Yet in one week of looking at what I love I found a thousand more things to love, reasons to be grateful, and was reminded quickly that every one on planet earth is so perfectly ordinary.

My life is boring, but my dreams are His to unfold in the most ordinary way. Thank you Jesus.