MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY

A couple weeks ago, I told the story of a wish I had had as a teen to hold and play with tiger cubs, and how some years later, through no action on my own part, other than going with the flow of my life, that wish was fulfilled. Today, I want to tell of another similar happening in my life which further illustrates the point that it isn't always about the action taken on our own part, but more about trust and belief.

From age 10 I lived in NJ about 20 min. from the beach. As a teen I dreamed of one day living near the beach. My ideal was to live in one of the apartments in Sea Bright that were across the road from the beach. Now there were large stone walls all along the road in this area to hold back the ocean when the Jersey shore was hit by hurricanes or severe storms, so unless you had an apartment on one of the upper floors, you weren't going to have much of a view of the ocean. Most of the apartments also did not even have beach access. Nonetheless, this is where I desperately wished to live. These apartments were very definitely out of my price range at the time. Again, I didn't let this bother me. Just as with the tiger cubs, I just dreamed and believed that one day I would live near the beach.

A few years later, as a 22 yr. old married woman I found myself living in base housing in Patrick AFB in Cocoa Beach, Florida RIGHT ON THE BEACH! Base housing on the BEACH! I couldn't believe it! All I had to do was go out my back door, a short walk up the dunes and there was the ocean! It was like the beach was my backyard! I could hear the waves in my bed at night. I got to go out my back door and watch the launching of several Space Shuttles from nearby Cape Canaveral. MUCH better than those apartments in Sea Bright, NJ! A funny sidenote on this story, is that as a kid watching "I Dream of Jeanne" I always thought it would be cool to live in Cocoa Beach as Major Nelson did. LOL Who knew that would become a reality for me when I grew up!

Again, what did I do to make this dream come true? Absolutely nothing. Just dreamed, with no resistance to the idea that someday, some way, I would live near the beach. Well I not only lived near it, I lived on it! So again, God/the Creator of the Universe gave me much better than I had even dreamed.

My point in all of this is that yes, we do need to work towards our dreams and goals, but sometimes what we need most is to have faith, trusting belief that anything we want can be our's. Sometimes we fuss and fight and strive so hard - and get absolutely nowhere. When if we would do our best to remove the doubts, and the need to MAKE the things we want happen exactly when we want them to, in precisely the way we want them to, etc. and just go with the flow, they can come to us in ways we would never have imagined, and end up being even better than we could have dreamed. The Creator of the Universe delights in giving us the desires of our hearts. We're very often the only thing that stands in the way.


Cocoa Beach, Florida