Dream Big Little One!
03/17/2025; 09/17/2025
We have this sign that was in my boys’ room. I think we got it for either Little Genius or Tater Tot when either was a baby. Dream Big Little One! It’s a message with which I have now come to disagree. It’s a message that I believe has been pushed too much. In school, they ask us what we want to be when we grow up. They ask us how we are going to change the world. They tell us to reach for the stars, and fulfill all these big dreams.
We can get into the reasons why I believe these messages had to be pushed in our community. Maybe we’ll get into, but maybe not lol.
I came across this lady’s youtube channel. She calls herself the Cottage Fairy. She’s this super soft spoken young woman of Washington state. She strives to live with intention in a way that is now called “simple living”. In one of her videos, the cottage fairy talked about no longer having ambition. She too, was filled with the idea that she needed to reach for success in the same ways as everyone else. And for a while she did. She earned a college degree, and began to pursue her business, but she wasn’t happy. She was tired. She was stressed. Long story short, she finally let go of the idea that she needed to grow her business, and hold onto all these ideas that she needed to be more and do more. Then she wasn’t tired anymore.
See, the idea that we all need to reach for the stars is a false one. Not everyone needs to dream big. We only need to be who we are, as created by God. God created each and every one of us for a reason, for a purpose, yes. But this purpose does not have to be what many of us define as these life-changing, unfathomable, unreachable dreams. God equips us, as we simply walk through life with Him, with the desires of His heart. He places those desires in our hearts and that is who we need to be. Those desires are what we need to do. If your desire is to go to your neighbor’s house and share recipes, and converse with them, then let it be. If your desire is to build a huge company, then let it be. If your desire is to be a stay-at-home parent, then let it be.
We can all have just the right amount of impact by just being who we are, helping where we are, reaching to what we are. No big dreams necessary. This push to dream big and change the world also puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on us. We stopped feeling like the simple life was good enough. We assumed all the “smart people” at school were supposed to go on and be these rich doctors and lawyers. I never felt that I needed to do that. Some might say that I wasted my potential. But I am living in my desires, the desires God placed in my heart. I am being mom, and wife at home. I am being a friend. I am being a Sunday school teacher, and singing in worship. I pray that I am having a positive impact on the lives around me, and I believe that I am.
I want to make sure it is clear that I am not bashing anyone who has “big dreams” and ambitions. I’m married to a man who has always had his head in the clouds and hands in the stars, ambitiously making his dreams become reality. His drive is one of the things I love about him.
I just want to make sure that what I am dreaming of are things that are true to my heart. As we seek him, God plants those desires in us. I’m finding out that many of my God-given desires have already been in my heart, but I had unknowingly let them go because…life, culture, societal norms. Now I am making changes, beginning to reach only for the stars God placed there for me. Right now, that is my family. As God stretches me and guides me, that will change. I want to take my time, enjoy the dreams I am living right now.
See, that’s something else about me. I remember always just enjoying the age that I was. Never wanting to be older so I could do what I want; never wishing to be younger and going back to being a kid. Right now is where I am . I can’t change that, so why long for anything different? Each day brings its smiles, or tears. Each chapter of life brings its freedoms and obligations. It is what it is. Appreciate and learn from the past. Make right now what you want it to be. Make loose plans for the future.
“There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven: A time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing; a time to search and a time to count as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away; a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace,” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, NIV).
