Daring to Dream

As many of you may know from facebook and instagram, I decided to take up guitar this week. As a result, typing this is very painful. For those of you who haven't played guitar, the first week or two is very painful for your fingers because you must form callouses in order to play painlessly in the future.

Lately Papa has been giving me the ability, the passion and the drive to dream again. Losing weight and taking up swimming as a new sport was such a big achievement that it gave me new perspective on my desire to have children. It helped me to see that I could still start and become good at new things. It reminded me to not take this time for granted. Because if children do come, things will change a lot. Through this journey I have shed 20lbs and I'm going for another 5lbs by our 6 year anniversary, November 17th, and a total of 10 more pounds by Christmas :)

Learning Russian was another such achievement. It seemed so big, unthinkable even, to be speaking Russian as fluently as I am now; translating for team meetings, as painful and embarrassing as that is at times; and just being able to be me in Russian is such a relief and a big stress off of my life here in general.

It's really good for me at this point in my life to have goals other than becoming a mother someday, because I am not sure if that is even a realistic goal. I don't want to let go of the hope that it could someday happen, but as a goal, it stinks, because I have absolutely no control over it. Even if there are certain steps I can take to possibly achieve that someday, if it is my entire focus and it never happens, it will ruin me.

I guess I have always known that, but I kept thinking it would happen soon and I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. I must stress again, I'm not giving up here. I am just evaluating where my focus is. Of course it must be on HIM, but he gives us permission to dream within his will. Right now his will is not what I dreamed before. But He is giving me new inspiration to dream.

One of the biggest surprises was recently, when He made one of those dreams learning another language. Why do I need to learn another language you ask? Well, there are actually two main languages where I live. One is Russian, and about 99% of the people here know Russian. But about 75% of the people's heart language is Kazakh. 

I have absolutely fallen in love with the Russian language and on top of that Russian culture and Russian people. But that leaves out about 75% of the population in the city I live in. There is definitely a very special place in my heart for Kazakh people, but I have not fallen in love with them as I have with Russians. I had been giving this to Papa and asking Him to help change it. He spoke very clearly to me, He asked me one thing "How did you originally fall in love with Russians?" and I knew the answer was language.

I immediately understood that this meant that He wanted me to learn Kazakh in order to have a deeper love for that 75% of the population. It seems to be a common theme among the foreigners who stay here long enough. You fall in love with one culture and one language and Papa shows you that you need space in your heart for the other language and culture as well.

It's not an easy goal. Studying language is not my favorite. I do know quite a bit of Kazakh just from being around it, but I'm not excited about the word order. I do know one thing though, in the wise words of Tom Hanks (aka Jimmy Dugan) "It's the hard that makes it great."  

So I will continue to dream about doing hard things and glorifying His name through it all. It would just be too easy for me to give up on life and say that I dreamed and didn't get what I dreamed of, a family. But that is just a lie from the pit of hell. Seriously. He made me to dream, even when things don't go as planned, so I guess the message is, never give up and keep on dreaming. I sure am.