Without further ado . . .

. . . I'm pregnant! Sometime in the middle of January, Dave and I are going to have a wee one. Little Winfrey is about 8 weeks old and seems to be doing well. We got to see the heartbeat on ultrasound last week and it was so special!!

As for me (because that's almost always the next question), I'm doing ok. I don't have morning sickness to speak of, but I'm more tired than I had ever thought something currently less than two inches long could make me, and my immune system isn't at its best (apparently, it's not supposed to be . . . the things they never tell you about pregnancy!). That tiredness is part of why I haven't been around here much, but I wanted to share our news!

The Big Blog Birthday Bash

Here it is! I hope you all enjoy it.

A couple of notes on the video before I post it:

1. It's long. I cut it off at 45 minutes and that's without answering all of the questions. That was as long as I could take staring into my computer and talking to myself.
2. There's a chunk in the middle where the lips don't quite match the words. I used the built-in camera on my computer and the computer started overheating and so some of the video is a little screwy. All of the audio is there, as far as I can tell, so if that drives you crazy you can just listen to the middle part.
   

Now, without further ado, the video:

The Big Blog Birthday Bash from Sarah Winfrey on Vimeo.

Better late than never...

So the birthday video is going to take a bit more time than I'd expected as I've not done anything like this before and apparently it takes longer than I'd thought. But it's coming!

Dreams Redux

Thanks to everyone for the great thoughts on my last post.

Having done some more thinking and mucking around in my head, I'm realizing that this is more of an issue of head vs. heart than it is about me not knowing what the answers are to what we should make of our dreams and what that means about following them.

My head, I think, agrees with much of what you all said. I especially felt like Heather's comment reflects where my head is at (I won't recap it here because she said she's posting about it on Friday, but you can check the comments on the last post to read it). When I think of things this way, God is like a military commander who trusts his ground commanders: He says that we have to strive for certain objectives but he gives us a lot of freedom as to how to go about them. I think that he might have a more specific will for certain individuals in certain situations, but he reveals that in a special way, in those situations.

I think this is definitely the way I feel about writing (as an example of one of my dreams). So many writers say that God has called them to write, specifically, and I haven't had that experience. I don't feel like God has told me to stop writing, or not to write. Instead, writing is something that I love and find important and pursue and use to convey truth about God and this world. I could probably do that in other ways, but this is the one that works for me, right now.

The hitch is this: I may write and write and write and never, ever be published the way I want to be. While learning to write well as a goal in and of itself has become much more important to me over the last several months, I'd be a terrible liar if I said that I never hope to have some of my work published. It seems inherent to writing to want publication: if you think you're saying something important, don't you almost always want to be able to share it with others?

But here's the kicker: if I felt like my dream came directly from God (instead of as a product of my choices, even though I want to ), I would feel like I had a much greater chance of success of seeing publication than I do if it's just me. God acts so definitively and pointedly in favor of the things he specifically wants (I'm thinking about all the battles he helped Israel win that they should have lost). With God not only on my side, but on the sidelines instead of in the bleachers or watching at home on TV, writing is safer. Everything else I want to pursue is safer too.

So my heart wants my dreams to come straight from God. If they do, what could there possibly be to worry about? If they don't--if they're from me, even if I'm choosing to follow His objectives as best I possibly can, lots of things can go wrong. These things, mind you, could have nothing to do with me, my motives, desires, etc.

As a corollary to all of this, I struggle more with my dreams when they're not specifically God/Christian oriented. To keep on the writing example, God doesn't show up explicitly in everything I write. Sometimes I write to take readers on an emotional journey and not necessarily to introduce them to God directly. While I don't think that's bad (a single piece of literature cannot, after all, encompass every aspect of life well), and while I know that part of living a truly Christian life is seeking excellence (or awesomeness ;) ) in everything we do, I wonder if I should be turning these works into something else . . . even when the only way I can think of to make them more explicitly Christian also makes them cheesy as cheesy can be, and I don't think God wants me to make my work BAD in order to tack his name onto it.

In the end, I want to be safe. I want my dreams all wrapped up in their nice little packages, ready to be unrolled as soon as I commit myself to them, as soon as I'm good enough to be the person who receives them. While I know that it's not like that, my heart is so afraid. And that's where I struggle--my head says that what my heart wants isn't true, my heart panics, and tries to explain itself in words my head can understand. That's never a good thing: hearts work best when they use their own syntax.

Around We Go: Dreams and Other Flying Things

So, I haven't been around much. When you see (below) where my mind has been, lately, you'll either understand or wish I was still gone ;)

This isn't the kind of post I like to post. I'd much rather post epiphanies, or at least things that I have all together (or that make me look like I have it all together), not musings on issues that run deep and don't seem easily resolved. That said, here's what's on my mind (let's see if I can make it make sense to someone other than me).

I’ve been fighting with my dreams lately. There are things that I want to pursue and I’m struggling to discern whether they’re from God, from my own soul in response to God, from my own soul in response to the world, from a dark part of my own soul that’s trying to look good. I’m so afraid that they’re not from him, that they’re only things that will distract me from him, in fact, and that following them is only going to lead to confusion. I’m afraid that I’m being selfish, that I should stick in there and fight it out and give up my dreams for the sake of other things.

In the process of all of this, I’ve discovered quite a few questions and almost no answers. If the story about the girl and her kite was my right-brain way of asking these questions, consider this post my left-brain's answer to that.

It's hard for me to be struggling with this. I’d love to jump on the “follow your dreams” bandwagon (Is that a bandwagon? It certainly feels like it from where I stand, but it’s hard to tell…). But I have this little niggling thing in the back of my mind that tells me I need to think about it some more, need to feel about it so that when I do jump into something, I can jump in with my whole self.

So I’m pondering whether following our dreams is good. I’m wondering how much I should abandon/risk to follow my own dreams, and a lot of that is based on whether or not I believe those dreams are good.

*Please know that what follows is A LOT. It’s heavy and convoluted and confusing (or, at least, it feels all of those ways to me). If you’d rather not read or don’t have anything to say, I understand.

When I talk about following dreams, I’m not talking extreme dream-following, doing things that might get you killed, sacrificing your family, etc. I think it’s pretty clear that things like that aren’t right unless there are some pretty compelling circumstances. I’m talking about more run-of-the-mill dreams (are there such a thing as run-of-the-mill dreams?)—for the purpose of this conversation, things that don’t involve jumping from high places to low ones (with paraphernalia, of course), moving to countries where people like to shoot each other (though that one’s debatable), yada and etc.

Here are some of the questions that come up when I think about all of this (This all formatted much easier in Word...when I pasted it in here, I lost my whole hierarchy and I can't get Blogger to recreate it...I hope this still makes sense):

• How do we practice self-denial and simultaneously follow our dreams? It seems like there’s something inherently selfish about ME following MY dreams, even if I dream of something incredibly humanitarian. It’s MY dream to give this to you, and so I am fulfilled by helping you. Am I doing it for me or for you? And what if I have a different sort of dream—one that’s not inherently humanitarian? What if I dream of opening a knitting store or having a web-run business that supports my family? Those aren’t evil things, but I’m definitely following MY own leading toward something I think will fulfill ME when I do it. And I look around this world and think that there’s a lot of goods greater than me being personally fulfilled. Should I suborn my dreams to those greater goods?

• I’ve heard that the things we’re supposed to give up are those things that keep us from following our dreams—the fears, etc. We have to be willing to look silly, stupid, etc. to do the things that we want to do with our lives. I only sort-of buy this. It only works if we know that God wants us to pursue our dreams, that they are somehow ordained by him.

• That brings me to another question: where do our dreams come from? Are they from God, involved somehow in the particular way each one of us reflects his image, implanted in us when we’re given life and made in his image (Another way to say this would be, “Are our dreams unique missions from God, the pursuing of which will directly move us more and more toward becoming the individuals he created us to be)? Or are they generated by our own souls, as we respond uniquely to both the image of God in us and the world where we find ourselves? Or, are they our own answers to what we see when we look around and try to figure out what would make us happy (in other words, are they idols, things we would sacrifice a lot to have but that won’t make us happy in the end)?

• I really want to believe that our dreams are from God—it doesn’t matter to me in which of the above ways, as long as they are things that come from him and go back to him. I like this—I want it to be true. But I keep running into problems with it.

• If pursuing our dreams is what God wants for us and doing so makes us more and more the people he created us to be, then what do we make of people who can’t pursue dreams, or who maybe are too focused on survival to even think about dreams. I’m thinking of refugees, people who have been through major trauma and spend the rest of their lives recovering, people who live in deepest poverty and it’s all they can do to survive, let alone dream. Do these people just never get to become the people God wants them to be? Is that a privilege of the wealthy, those of us with the time, energy, and psychological resources to dream and follow those dreams?

• This doesn’t seem true—often, it seems like people who have less financially or who struggle through life know God the best, or at least know him well. What does this say about the role of dreams and pursuing them.

• If pursuing our dreams is what God wants for us and doing so makes us more and more the people he wants us to be, then what do we make of people whose dreams fail? Are they just never going to become that person God wants them to be? I don't think that's right. Were they not good enough? Don't like that, either. Did they miss God’s call on their life and chase a wrong path? I don't even necessarily think this is true--I think that sin and evil can thwart even a good dream and God might allow that, for whatever reason. But, then, how do we account for sin and evil when it comes to dreams?

• I come back to the selfish thing again here. I don’t think God wants us to be selfish, and so many dreams are selfish. Even the ones that offer good to the world are usually done first for the well-being of the do-er, not for the people who get the good as a sort of by-product.

• What is the role of safety and responsibility in all of this? I’ve heard great stories about people who quit their jobs to follow a dream and end up happy, healthy, and whole. But I’ve also heard stories about people who quit and whose dreams fail, who then have to somehow pick up the pieces not just for themselves but for their whole families and move on. It’s great to say that there’s really no such thing as safety and that each of our first responsibility is to ourselves and the dreams in our hearts, but the truth is that there are things that are more safe than others. How much risk is acceptable? How much is too much? Does it depend on the kind of dream it is (like, it might be acceptable to risk more if my dream is to take the Gospel somewhere but not so much if my dream is to write books or start a business)?

• These concerns seem to particularly come into play when you start talking about people with families. It’s one thing to say, “I’m going to rise my own life/health/mind/well-being/stability/whatever,” but completely another to risk those for other people, especially children but also spouses, parents, etc.

As you can probably see, I've been making myself a little crazy about all of this, going round after round with my own mind and heart on these issues. At the back of it all, I keep wondering if I'm thinking about things so much because I don't want to have to go after something. But the minute I think about going after something, all of these things pop up again. So many of my deepest personal doubts and struggles touch these issues that I'm not sure I even feel qualified to discern whether it's what I'm wanting that's harmful or staying where I am that would do the most damage, but who else is going to do it for me? Thus I'm walking in, wading through, hoping that I recognize truth when I see and that it stomps on all the lies.

You're Invited . . .

I just had a fabulous idea while I was in the shower. Well, I don't know how it will turn out, but it seems fabulous right now.

In 29 days, I turn 30. This afternoon, through some sorta related but mostly unrelated thoughts, I started thinking about what that means to me, what my twenties and my teens and all the years before now meant, and how I feel and think about it all. As I thought, I realized that what I'd really like to do is be interviewed about all of this (I think that's the lazy girl's way out--if it's an interview, I don't really have to organize it all!).

Now, I don't have anyone to interview me, and part of the fun is not only answering the questions, but asking them and recording them and all that. I thought about thinking up the questions I want to answer and interviewing myself, but that's not nearly as much fun as a community project. Besides, so many of the people who I'd love to celebrate with are people who I only or mainly know online (that's y'all). So, I'm issuing an official invitation for you to come to my Online Interview Birthday Party (you're invited even if you know me in offline life, too!).

To celebrate with me, all you have to do is ask a question. I'm up for almost any questions, whether they're helpful-in-reflecting-on-30-questions, silly questions, dumb questions, funny questions, sad questions, any questions at all that you'd like me to answer, just leave them in the comments.

Sometime around the first of May, I'll sit down with all the questions and figure out how I want to answer them (writing? video podcast? audio podcast?). Somewhere around my birthday, I'll post the answers here, in whatever form they take.

I don't promise to answer every single question, but I will do my best to get to all of them. Inappropriate questions will not only not get answered, they'll be deleted from my comment list (Do I even need to say that here?). I'll probably add some questions of my own, and if nobody plays along, I'll come up with the whole list.

What do you think? Fabulous, right?

Enough

**Sorry for the repeat...Blogger published this out of order. No idea why.

Once upon a time, there lived a little girl who wanted to fly. For her whole life, or at least as much of it as she could remember, people had told her she should fly. It was her birthright, they said, and there was no good reason why she shouldn't fly if she just worked hard enough.

The little girl felt so excited when she talked to these people. Her dream seemed within her grasp--all she had to do was become good enough, smart enough, and strong enough, and she would fly away to soar with the birds through the sunset and into morning.

As she grew a little, the girl began to be troubled about her dream. Flying seemed so hard. The sky seemed so far away and she felt so heavy. She looked around her and saw other people, sometimes the same ones who told her she should fly. They had worked really hard, even harder than she was working, and they couldn't fly. How hard must it be, then, to actually rise above the earth?

It seemed too hard to do all on her own, and so the little girl hatched a plan. One night, she took the sheet off her bed and made it into her special flying sheet. Now, she had a real way to fly. Some day, when the wind was just right, when she'd perfected her running and jumping, she would grab all four corners of the sheet, run from one end of her yard to another, jump, and the wind would carry her away.

The girl became obsessed with her plan. During the day, she practiced running and jumping and she stared at the sky, waiting for just the right wind. At night, she dreamed of flying, practicing cartwheels and flips in her dreams.

Slowly, the girl got stronger. She ran faster and jumped higher. She learned to read the wind, so she'd know when hers was coming. Her heart pounded when she thought about how close the day must be, her flying day.

And then, the moment came. The girl felt the wind change and knew she had the strength to run and jump and take off to see the world. She ran inside to get her sheet.

When she came back out, she saw a man standing in her backyard. Though she'd never seen him before, he wasn't a stranger.

"Jesus," she said, "what are you doing here? Have you come to see me fly?"

She felt so excited. Jesus loved her enough to come and watch the thing happen that she'd worked so hard to achieve. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"Give me your sheet," he said, still smiling. He raised his hands to take it from her.

Her smile fell off her face.

"What?"

"Give me your sheet," he said again.

She looked at the sheet in her hands.

"But if I give you this, I can't fly! And I've dreamed of flying all my life. And I've worked so hard," she said.

"Give me your sheet," he said.

The girl didn't know quite what was going on, but she pulled her sheet and held it all in her arms.

"No," she said. "I want to fly."

Jesus let his hands drop and walked toward her. She smiled, sure she'd won. He reached out and touched her sheet. Somehow, she knew he wouldn't just take it, not like that, so she let him.

"Give me your sheet," he said.

"But how will I fly?" she asked.

"Maybe you won't," he said.

"But I've only ever wanted to fly."

"What if there's something better than flying?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if there's something better than flying?"

"There's nothing better than flying."

"Have you seen the world? Have you see what is above and beyond this world? How do you know there's nothing better than flying?"

She pondered for a minute.

"I don't know. But I've always wanted to fly," she said.

"Give me your sheet."

"If I give it to you, will I get one of these better things? Am I trading this sheet for something better?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Why not? I know I can fly, if I run and jump right now. Why would I give you this sheet?"

"Give me your sheet," he said.

The girl didn't know what to do. She loved Jesus, and she thought Jesus loved her. She certainly didn't want to fly away from him. But she wanted to fly.

"Will you fly with me?" she asked.

"Give me your sheet," he said.

His eyes somehow made her not angry, even though she wanted to hate him. She kept looking into them, like she couldn't stop. Slowly, the girl dropped the sheet, all but one little corner. Jesus gathered it up into his arms and moved to take the last bit. She clenched her fingers around it. He tugged, but she held on. Her fingers turned white and ached with the force of her holding, but she couldn't bring herself to let go.

"Give me your sheet," he said.

"But if I give you this, I have nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing!"

He gestured around him.

"What about this?" he asked.

"What about what?"

"All of this."

She looked around her. Everything looked the same as it always had--her house, the yard where she practiced and played, the fences with neighbors' houses on the other side.

She looked back at Jesus.

"I don't want this," she said. "I want to fly."

"But you have this," he said.

"But I want to fly."

"Why do you want to fly?"

"I want to go places and see things. I want to meet important people and talk to them. I want to do all those things that nobody else gets to do. I want to be somebody."

"Who are you here?"

"I'm nobody. I'm like everyone else, like my parents and my brothers and sisters and my friends."

"You're somebody here."

"What?"

"You're somebody here."

The girl looked around her. She wanted to believe him, but she still wasn't sure. To be somebody here, now, that would really be something. Almost nobody was somebody here. Jesus tugged at the sheet.

"I can't let it go," she said. "I want to fly."

"Do you want to let go?"

She looked at the ground and scrubbed her foot against a tuft of grass.

"Yes," she said. "If I am somebody here, I want to let go. Yes."

He began to pull, harder than he'd pulled before. She found herself pulling back, unable to do anything else and still not entirely willing to let go. He pulled harder and harder, tugging against her. Their tug-of-war felt like an all-out battle.

Finally, Jesus gave one long, last tug, harder than anything he'd done before. The girl felt her hands loosen, her grip suddenly and violently torn. She saw Jesus with the sheet, the whole sheet, and she felt her heart panic.

Before she could even begin to feel the panic, though, she saw Jesus unfurl the sheet. He held it in one hand and let its length whip in the breeze. Then, in a moment that forever after played through her mind in slow motion, he let the sheet go. The wind caught it and carried it up, over their heads, even over the houses.

The girl cried out, once. It felt like her heart was being ripped out. If only...if only she was attached to that sheet, she'd be flying like she always dreamed. Her heart swelled, then drained out in tears down her face.

Before she knew it, she realized Jesus was next to her. In the next second, she was in his arms, crying out her fury at him, to him. It shouldn't have made any sense except it did, and she was crying too hard to think very much.

After a long while, she finished crying. Oh, there might be more tears another day, but she'd cried all she could for that day. She looked up and saw Jesus gazing down at her. His eyes had never lost their gentleness, not even in the midst of that great tug-of-war.

"Why, Jesus," she asked. "Why did you take my sheet?"

"Could I hold you when you were holding that sheet?"

She scrunched up her nose and thought for a minute.

"I guess not," she said.

"That sheet came between you and me," he said, "and I can't ever let anything do that."