If I were to share with you all of the
amazing dreams I have lived since my birth in 1966, it would take up a book
rather than a blog post. Therefore, I am going to start with a dream I
had when I was in the 7th grade. I wrote down the commitment that
I made to living the dream of working at the Florida United Methodist
Children's Home and tucked it safely away in my Confirmation Bible.
I don't think I
shared the dream with anyone else because it seemed rather improbable. I
loved my Bible and I loved every sacred item that I placed determinedly, reverently
and privately, in its pages. This bit of paper where my 7th
grade self made such an important commitment is a sacred treasure to me so it
is very fitting that I placed my dream in a sacred keeping place.
As I got older, I
realized how improbable my dream would become. I learned that the pay was
minimal and that the job of House Parent required that my husband do the job
with me. Of course, those obstacles did not occur to me when I committed
myself to the dream as a child. I
thought, “Oh, well…you were a child and you didn’t know better. No need to worry about childhood commitments. God will understand.”
I went on to
college and got a degree in Elementary Education and began teaching public
school. I won awards for innovation in education, received grants for
special projects and became a Professional Development Trainer, consultant, and
curriculum writer for the School Board while still relatively new to teaching. My husband worked for Delta Airlines and we
were desperately trying to have a child of our own. We enjoyed traveling
with Delta and the terrific benefit package the company offered.
Just when we thought we had our life
figured out we faced an earth quake sized shift in our life. After 7
years of marriage, a pregnancy and birth fraught with complications, we finally
had our precious child. She was born in September
and in December my husband went into work as normal but came home from work
without a job. He had been laid
off. In the months that followed, he worked
desperately to come up with another job that would adequately replace his lost
income but it didn’t happen. We ran out
of savings and we were more than desperate.
It was at this time of searching that the
dream made itself known again. I was reading the job listings in our
local and very small newspaper and astonishingly to me; I saw an advertisement
for House Parents at the very Children's Home I had dreamed of so many years
ago. The largest obstacle to us living this dream was now behind us. We no longer had to consider the challenge of
leaving the luxury and trajectory of my husband’s job at Delta. Time had
taken that barrier away from us and our great need smoothed off our edges and
prepared us to live at poverty level in order to live the dream.
Saying, "Yes" to this dream
meant letting other dreams go. We put our house on the market. We
left our pool, corner lot, and privacy fenced back yard (which, I thoroughly
enjoyed) and most painfully, we had to find new homes for our beloved
shelties. We sold precious furniture
pieces and left our comfortable life style behind as we embarked on one of the
most challenging and important quests of our lives.
While I was the
oldest of four children and had more education and experience than was required
to be hired, my husband was the youngest child in his family and did not have
any child care experience at all. This was no small obstacle. Gratefully, we participated in quality training
events that have helped to form us into the people we are today.
We were assigned to Shannon Cottage and we moved in with 12 girls between
the ages of Kindergarten and 18 years old. With our daughter of 10 months
old, the 12 girls and ourselves, I suddenly was responsible for preparing meals
for a household of 15. Helping children with homework, managing after
school activities, chores, medical and counseling needs as well as behavior
programs took all that we could muster.
I can’t say that we were prepared for the
depth of the challenges we would face. We
went through a two year period of constantly battling lice and scabies. Let me tell you, bugs and dirty things are
seriously gross to me. This challenged
everything in my being. Even harsher was
dealing with the parents who had abused and/or abandoned their children but
thought they should have input into the way I cared for their children. I learned that I was called to love all of
humanity at the same time as hating the evil humanity is capable of
perpetuating.
Living the dream was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my
life. It was also one of the most important. The
sheer desperation of the struggle taught me more about the human
condition than I could have ever imagined. Spending my nights scrubbing
floors taught me to more deeply understand laboring for love. I was able
to connect with the deep abandonment that others were facing and the parts of
myself that I had abandoned. I found out that as much as I hate scrubbing
floors, or eating from the local food pantry, I could do so out of sheer
unadulterated love for my family and my extended family. The extreme challenges taught me about the
strength of my family of three, the depth of my inner resources and the
importance of my faith.
As I currently face one of the challenging times of living my current
dream of being a working artist, I am reminded of the lessons I learned 18
years ago when I said "Yes" to the dream of my 7th grade self,
knowing full well the improbability of it all while also not fully
understanding the deep and powerful challenges we would face. Despite the
struggles, I sometimes think of going back to the Children’s Home out of the
powerful love I have for the children. Yet, I know, I have already lived
that dream and other dreams calling to me now.
Would you like the support you need to live your
dreams? Do you need a listening ear that
can offer you specific praise and encouragement? Would you like help creating attainable and
measurable goals so that you, too, are able to live your dreams? Would you like to create your own life plan
or a stage of life plan? I offer one on
one mentoring sessions tailored to your specific needs. Contact me at TammyDialGray@aol.com for more
information or to schedule your session.
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