I didn’t want to be a school teacher, medical technician, or an environmentalist. Kids, test tubes, and analyzing pollutants weren’t for me.
I wanted to be a writer. As a writer, I could construct and dismantle worlds with pen and paper or my desktop computer.
In college, I majored in public relations and minored in journalism. My aspiration, my Plan A, was to be a writer in one of the two professions.
Plan A didn’t happen. Plan B—get a J-O-B, did.
After graduation, I accepted a means-to-an-end job. Like most financially-challenged college graduates, I needed the money. So, I shelved my dream job.
I didn’t get the dream job, but I kept the dream.
Don’t ever forget your dream. A dream is a terrible thing to abandon.
Instead of constructing worlds, I wrote poems. Poems about hatred, the American Flag, and being black in America.
I wrote poems peppered with raw feelings about headline happenings in Birmingham, Alabama, and America. They are time capsules, a reservoir of thoughts and feelings during the eighties.
After several years, my passion for poetry faded. Front and center were my husband, kids, and work. I was too busy with tennis and basketball practices/games, and tournaments to be concerned with putting my feelings in verse.
Poetry was gone. But I did write two short stories. I don’t remember their titles. They’re stored away just as my deferred dream had been for so long.
Then one day, I met this sales lady at a boutique shop. She said she owned the shop, and it was a Shunammite Blessing. She encouraged me to read the biblical story of the Shunammite woman.
I discovered a Shunammite’s Blessing is an extraordinary blessing from God. Something that God knows you desire. But you think it’s impossible to achieve. A Shunammite’s Blessing is a dream come true.
In 2 Kings 4:8–37, the Shunammite woman desired a son but thought she and her husband were too old.
What do we have in common with the Shunammite? We also have desires and dreams that seem impossible.
The sales lady wanted her own business but thought it wasn’t doable. And me, I wanted to become an author but lacked inspiration.
The life-changing events in the 2 Kings’ verses compelled me to take my writing dream off the shelf. I had to write about this extraordinary story. So, I wrote and published Room for Love and Faith: The Shunammite’s Blessing.
Dreams do come true.
Now I tell others, my book is a Shunammite Blessing.
Take your dream off the shelf. I did it. And you can do it too.