What to do with the Death of a Dream

Have you ever given up on a dream? Has life ever beaten you up or beaten you down so badly, you felt it was pointless to believe in a better or different future?

In my book Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them, I talk about how after my divorce in 2011, I felt like my life was ruined. Like I had blown my chance at the dream life I pictured in my head, by mistakenly marrying the wrong person, and would just have to settle for whatever second-rate existence I could get from thereon.

A divorce is not only the death of a relationship, but the death of a dream.

And I have found the mourning process to be much the same as mourning the loss of a human being.

Have you ever found yourself in a place like this? It’s daunting, discouraging…depressing even.

There’s a verse in Proverbs that says,
“Where there is no vision, the people perish…”

My mentors once explained to me that everyone starts out with a big “dream circle” when they are young. We are all going to be astronauts and professional athletes and Broadway stars when we’re 6 – even 16 – but somewhere along the way to becoming an adult, responsibilities and bills and routine take ahold of us, and our dream circle shrinks to fit the reality of the life we are living.

Or, for some of us, a life-altering event shakes us out of the perpetual state of hope and optimism we have always known until all we can do is survive each day.

We stop being able to see more than what is right in front of us. Our dream dies. And we just exist.

That’s where I was.

I share this story in my book:

I have always had “vision boards” up in my bedroom. I was probably sixteen when I pasted together and hung my first one. I’ve moved them to every apartment and house I have ever lived in (and I’ve moved a lot!). I hung them when I was first on my own, living in a low-income apartment. At a time when I would often only have ten dollars left over at the end of the week for groceries, looking at those boards inspired me to keep dreaming.

Right in front of me I saw the pictures of the types of houses I wanted to live in, the cars I wanted to drive, the places I wanted to see, and the intangible things—children to adopt, relationships I would have, the impact I would make. And I was reminded that where I was, was not where I was staying. My circumstances and surroundings were only temporary as long as I kept moving forward.

The first place I lived after my divorce, I didn’t hang my vision boards up. I felt so far removed from those pictures, from ever seeing those dreams come to fruition. I just couldn’t see how that life was possible anymore.

When Barry and I moved into our first house together, I pulled them all out and cried. I still wasn’t sure I believed in them, but I was more disheartened that I had given up on dreaming all together.

When I shared this with Barry, he went out and bought fresh poster board and insisted we make new ones together.

Even though my old ones still had some things on them I liked, they were from a totally different place in my life. I took a couple things from them, but I wanted a new vision board to match the new vision in my life.

That’s the power of vision boards. When you constantly have the images of what you want your life to look like in front of your eyes, your imagination and subconscious mind go to work to make those things manifest in the physical realm. They will find a way, attracting ideas and people and opportunities to you.

While creating my new vision board, I found this one small quote I cut out of a magazine that meant the most to me. I don’t even remember what it was in reference to, but it said,

“Your dreams miss you.”

I get emotional just typing that now. Those four words were such a simple, sweet reminder to me that I was called and created for more than the complacency I was settling for.

I had dreams inside me just waiting to get out, but I had allowed myself to move far away from them. I had forgotten them, left them behind. I’d buried them in my day-to-day routine and busyness to keep my mind off what I had been through and the fact that I was stagnant in life.

My dreams missed me.

And I missed them.

Your dreams miss you.

I give you permission to dream again.

The next chapter of your life hasn’t been written yet and it matters how you finish. Live on purpose and scream to the world, ‘It’s not over till I win!’” – Pastor Gary Newell

So, if you’re in that place where hope seems lost and dreams seem dead, create a vision board for yourself.
When is the last time you let yourself dream? Given yourself permission to imagine life a different way?

I have always heard, if you want to get a big dream, get around big dreamers. Believe it or not, there are people in your life who see your potential more clearly than you do. Find those people. Spend time with them.

Whatever you do, do not lose sight of that vision, that hope – that your life can be better, fuller, more-fulfilling, more-purposeful than it is now.

As cliché as it sounds, you have seeds of greatness inside of you. I beg you, do not let them get buried in busyness and routine and monotony. Or disappointments, heartache and loss. Keep your dreams in the forefront of your mind, put pictures of them in front of you. And you will see them come to pass.

your dreams miss you.jpg

4 Things You Need to Know Before You Start Blogging

Have you ever thought about starting a blog?

I toyed with the idea once or twice myself before I finally did. As much as I love to write, I hate blogs. Everything about them. My thoughts are, who has time to read blogs? …much less keep up with writing one? AmIRight?

Plus, there are just so many out there already! As of 2013, there were 152 million blogs on the internet. [1] As of 2:46pm on Feb 17^th, 2017 there had already been 2.9 million blog posts posted THAT DAY alone.[2]

I figured if I did ever start one, I would make it about two months and never remember to post again. Fizzle out. Like so many other bloggers do. In fact, research shows the average blog is dead after a mere 100 days.

So I never started one. Until I did. Sunday was the two year anniversary of my first blog post.

So, why did I start one?

Because in one conversation with my mentor, she told me if I ever wanted to get a book contract with a publisher, I needed this thing called a platform, and blogging was generally a good way to start building one of those.

So, Feb 19^th, 2015, I opened a WordPress account and copy/pasted something I’d already written as a facebook post as my first blog entry. (I know, I totally cheated.)

But since that first post, I’ve learned a few things. Here’s what I want you to know, that I wish I had known then:

Know that blogging is not for the faint of heart. But it’s worth it.

Baring your soul for the whole world to see is not easy – even for us extroverts.

There’s a Special Thanks page in the back of my book and my editor’s name is first on the list. This is part of what I wrote to her: Turning over a first book (or maybe any book? I don’t know yet) for editing is kind of like tearing open your soul and inviting someone to walk inside. It’s exposing the most intimate parts of your inner self and trusting that person not to return pieces of you shattered and bloody.

It’s the same with blogging.

There are some posts I write that are so vulnerable I want to throw up after I hit the “publish” button. I don’t know if my words and my heart will be received appropriately. What if the message I was trying to convey is misinterpreted? Or what if I just sound stupid, or whiny, or self-centered, or entitled….

I vividly remember feeling this way about a post I wrote regarding race relations during some of the tense riots that happened over the last few years. (You can read that post here: www.RachelDawnWrites.com/blog/Color-blinded)

I have been super fortunate to this point that I haven’t gotten any extremely negative, critical or harsh comments about anything I’ve written. But I know as my platform grows, it’s inevitable.

.facebook_1460409929320 I heard a speaker at a writing conference say, “When you’re marketing anything in life – whether it’s chicken sandwiches or books – there is a 1% jerk factor in the world. One percent of people who are just negative and critical for the sake of being negative and critical. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. You could offer the best thing in the world, that 99 other people love, but this 1 person will find something wrong with it and a reason to complain.” Expect it, Accept it, Move on. It’s not you, it’s them.

Your message will resonate with some people and not with others, and that’s ok. You can get really derailed really fast if you try pleasing everyone with every post. That’s just not reality.

Pick you niche, hone your voice, find your audience, and write meaningful stuff for them. Period.

Any self-doubt, second-guessing, fear, uncertainty or criticism is totally worth it when someone responds to something you’ve written with, “me too”, “that’s exactly how I feel”, “I thought I was alone”.

Know that it sucks. No one will read it (at first). You will want to quit.

I understand that’s 3 things in one bullet point, but they are all the same.

Recently a photographer friend of mine posted: “Being a [creative] entrepreneur is just waves of ‘I just want to quit’, ‘this is crap’, ‘I’m deleting social media’, and occasionally, ‘Man, I was really made to do this.’”

When you spend hours working on one post, upload it, and keep refreshing your wordpress stats every 15 mins only to see that only 6 people look at it and no one comments….. you kiiiind of feel like throwing in the towel.

What’s the point of writing, of investing your time and emotional/mental energy, if no one even cares?

I don’t have an answer to this one. Because I found myself asking this very same question this week. After two years of blogging I have 33 “subscribers” to my blog. Even some of my most loyal readers, who tell me they love every post I write, aren’t subscribed and they don’t regularly share my posts with their networks. So I get it, it’s really discouraging.

But I’m learning there are ways you can hone your voice and your craft to increase those numbers, to increase your effectiveness.

I came across some incredible free training just this week that’s helping me with streamlining my posts to get more traction and shares. Ruth Surkamp founder of Elite Blogging Academy, author of “How to Blog for Profit: Without Selling Your Soul”, is offering this free series online right now. Check it out: https://ruthsoukup.leadpages.co/blogging-made-simple-2017-video-1/?inf_contact_key=bd1f84da626e39d8eb703404e962fc6161c1d1a4683a3ab7fb02ce596d2ae12f

I got tons of practical, immediately applicable tips from the very first video. I completely restructured this post I had already started after watching it and learning what I did. Thank you for that Ruth!

Know WHY you are blogging.

The quickest way to get frustrated and stop blogging is if you start a blog before you know why you are starting a blog. There are definitely tips and tricks and skills you can learn to blog more effectively, depending on what your goals are. But if you don’t know what your goals are….. you can’t hit them.

Ask yourself, why are you blogging? Is it just for fun? Are you just blogging for yourself, a literal personal web-log or diary? Are you blogging to tell stories to your close family and friends? Are you trying to use blogging as a source of income? Are you trying to expand your network/platform/reach/tribe/influence – whatever you want to call it – to get your voice and your message out there? Are you trying to make an impact? Change people’s lives? Raise awareness? Be an expert? Start a movement?

Even if it’s just to make people laugh or to feel inspired, you need to ask yourself: What is your purpose in blogging?

I came face to face with this question shortly after I launched my blog and my online platform, when Facebook asked me “What business am I in?” I stared at the blank box with the blinking cursor in it for a solid half hour while I asked myself, why am I doing this anyway? I came up with a pretty solid answer I shared in this post here: www.RachelDawnWrites.com/blog/what-business-am-i-in.

What it boiled down to in 160 characters or less was:

“I am in the business of restoring hope, igniting dreams, inspiring change, and leading people toward freedom.”

And out of that whole exercise came my business tagline, “Restoring Hope, Igniting Dreams”.

That’s why I blog. That’s why I study how and work to increase my platform. Because the more people my blogs can reach, the more people’s lives I can impact and influence for the better. Which is literally the reason I was created in the first place.

Blogging helps me move in the direction of my purpose. That’s a good investment of time and energy.

You need to ask yourself if it is for you.

Know You Have Something Worth Saying.

Who was I to start a blog? What did I have to say that people would be interested in and that hadn’t already been said a thousand times. Who would want to read it? How would I stand out from all the others? Those were some of the questions I wrestled with that February two years ago.

counter (2) Reading all the overwhelming stats about how saturated the world of blogging is and thinking about all the work, potential roadblocks, discouragements and frustrations could easily make you throw up your hands and decide blogging isn’t worth it at all.

Or maybe you’re stuck in that place I was asking, “Who am I to do this?”

This week I taught the high school service at my church. We are in the midst of an all-church journey on identity, wherein we are identifying the lies and labels in our lives – who we think we are or who the world says we are – and replacing those with the Truth of who God says we are.

Part of the lesson this week was the story of Moses and his own identity crisis. Born a Hebrew slave, raised an Egyptian Prince, on the run after committing murder, Moses found himself pondering life as a sheepherder in the country. When seemingly out of nowhere, God called him to be the hero of the story; to lead the people of Isreal out of slavery in Egypt. His response to God was similar to mine when God told me to write a book (and subsequently start a blog), “Who am I, Lord? Who am I to be the hero or lead a people?”

God’s response was simple: It doesn’t matter who you are, Moses, what matters is Who is with you and Who is sending you. He told Moses to go into Egypt and tell people “I Am” (Yahweh) has sent me. That’s all the credibility and power Moses needed.

You were created for a purpose. Just like I was. Just like Moses was. Uniquely. There are 522d171b57ab75f123db71e966e47bfa seeds planted inside of you, talents and abilities, to help you succeed in that purpose. Writing – sharing your thoughts through written words – may very well be a part of that.

Lysa Terkeurst says this in her book “Uninvited”: “Remember that there is an abundant need in this word for your contributions….. your thoughts and words and artistic expressions…. Your exact brand of beautiful.”

Other people might have similar things to say, but there is only one you. You are the only person with your story, your experiences, your worldview, your voice.

Don’t let your doubts, fears, or insecurities stop you from doing what you were created to do.

What if, instead of agreeing to the mission, Moses had told God, “There are so many other Hebrew men more qualified for this than me, I’m out.”

Would the Isrealites still be in slavery today? Would thousands of lives be entirely different? Maybe. Likely not. Likely, God still would have accomplished His mission, but He would have used someone else to get it done. He could have found someone else to stand up to Pharoah and say, “Let my people go.” But the one life that certainly would have been different would have been Moses’. He would have lived out his days as a sheepherder, which was not what he was created to do.

If you decide not to let those words that are burning inside you get out, could God still get that message out through someone else? Of course. But then you won’t be living out what you were created to do either. And what kind of living is that?

So, blogging might be hard and it might suck and maybe you’ll never have more than 30 readers, and most of the time you’ll feel like giving up, but if it’s part of what you were created to do, you must.

And when you feel like quitting, just remember why you are doing it, Who sent you, and that you have something worth saying.

[1] http://www.patrickkphillips.com/blogging/research-the-average-blog-lifespan-isnt-very-long/

[2] www.Worldometers.info/blogs

God is in the Restoration Business

He breathes life into lifeless places.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a relationship, your health, your emotions, your dreams….

He brings dry bones out of the grave and wraps them in flesh once more.

He Restores the years you lost, the love you lost, the friends you lost, the faith you lost, the dreams you lost, the opportunities you lost. Over and above what we can even think of or imagine.

He makes all things new, again.

If you let Him.

If something in your life needs total restoration, read these promises below and be encouraged.

He CAN do it.
He HAS done it for others (including me).
He WANTS to do it for you.
“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27, ESV)

“Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.” (Joel 2:23-26, ESV)

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19)

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” (Psalm 51:1-2, 6-12, ESV)

“Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.” (Zechariah 9:12, NIV)

GOD IS IN (2)

What Business AM I in??!

A few weeks ago, Facebook released a promotional tool for “business pages” housed on their site. It’s a video that starts with, “we are in the business of….” And gives a very brief overview/description of your business. Like a 15 second mini-commercial.

I followed the link to create my own for my writer/speaker page. Facebook did all the work for me, I just had to fill in the blanks and make my selections and it would spit out a professional marketing tool. I picked all my favorite pictures and clicked “next”, then the tagline pops up: “We are in the business of…..” I sat staring at the blinking cursor in the empty text box.

What business AM I in?

Why does this page exist?

What IS the point of all this?

Why am I doing this?
And how do I even begin to put that into 160 characters or less?!!

You want me to summarize my life’s purpose in less than a dozen words?!

I literally closed the window and didn’t look at it again for two weeks.

It ate at me, that I couldn’t articulate why I do what I do, and how to explain it to someone – simply.

I started to meditate on the reasons why I write, why I share vulnerable parts of my life and my story, why building my platform on social media even matters…. I started to really think about all of it.

I thought back to a question I had asked myself about a year ago, “Rachel, what are you passionate about?”. At that time, I made a list and that list helped me to put things into perspective. I was able to prioritize my time/energy/focus on the things that really matter to me, and put aside things that I was mildly interested in, or that were just eating up my time.

A few key words started to float to the surface of my mind: Hope, Inspiration, Dreams, Belief, Freedom.

Finally, I decided on this: “We are in the business of restoring hope, igniting dreams, inspiring change, and leading people toward freedom.”

The video turned out absolutely delightful. (if you want to watch it: My Business Video)

I wished I could have gone into more detail about each of those items on there but I certainly can here:

Restoring hope
for the hopeless.
Because I once was.

Igniting dreams
for those who have forgotten how to dream, or lost the ability to believe in them.

Because I lived in that place, the place where everything I once dreamed about seemed too far out of reach, broken, ruined, and you don’t know how or where to begin again.

Inspiring change
I realize I cannot changing anybody. Ever. Period.
But by sharing my story of how my life has changed, I can help people see that change is possible, and achievable, and desirable and inspire them to seek change in their own lives.

Leading people to freedom.
Freedom? Freedom.
Freedom from shame, freedom from fear, freedom from guilt, freedom from bondage, freedom from entitlement, freedom from their past hurts, failures and bad decisions.
Woah. That’s a big one. A pretty tall order. And it’s the one thing I’m most passionate about. But can I really do that?
No, I cannot make anyone free, I cannot give anyone freedom myself. But, I can lead them to the Source of True Freedom, where I found my own.

If I achieve all or any one of these things, in the life of even one person who visits, likes, or follows my page, then it will have been successful in its purpose.

So what business am I in?
I’m in the business of loving and encouraging people. I’m in the business of (trying my best) to show people the character and person of Jesus in real life, even if it’s over a computer screen. I’m in the business of making myself vulnerable so people feel less alone about their own failures and shortcomings. I’m in the business of extending grace, ’cause God knows I need my fair share! I’m in the business of helping people live in the fullness and wholeness they were created so that they may identify and go after their own purpose. I’m in the business of positioning them to see and believe that it’s possible – no matter what they’ve been through, or from where they are starting. I’m in the messy human being business.

But that’s WAY more than 160 characters ;)What business are you in?