When I saw this one I really thought... ugh... I am not sure I am ready to talk about the love of my life... but thankfully I can talk about anything when it comes to the love of my life. I think if I was going to write about any one love of my life I think I'd write about the very person who changed my life like no other. Phyllis. I never really understood how I could really love anyone so much, but once I became a mother, my heart grew about a gazillion times it's normal capacity for love and for all the things I've done wrong in my life, there is one thing I got right, the love of a mother for her daughter. She's really the best thing of my whole life. I don't even know if I can write about it because there just aren't enough words.
But thankfully as far as a love of my life goes, I do not have to talk about a person. Well, if you know me, if that were the case, I would have skipped that one because when it comes to a romantic love, that one certainly didn't turn out how I thought it would... So... let me tell you about a dream I've had for as long as I can remember dreaming.
A community center.
Where kids can come and be kids, a safe place where the fears can be soothed, where kids know they are loved. But you know it's not just about kids, it's about all the generations, young and old. I can see kids playing chess or checkers or dominoes with seniors, and friendships develop. Old learning from the young, and the young learning from the old.
Tutoring and sports. A place where children can be poured into, and encouraged to be smart and kind. Imagine a place where kids can learn the integrity, and love of the game, where they can learn how different positions are necessary. It teaches kids that in our differences, we are better together.
Medical help for those who need it, physical and emotional healing.
A food pantry. A place that fills the need of filling bellies. A place that is encouraging and not shaming. Everyone needs help. Let us love in deeds and truth not just our words. A spring of abundance in the desert of need. Shelves lined with health food and fun cereal. A community garden that is more community than garden that brings people together to live and learn. Fresh food. Abundance, enough to share.
Cooking classes. I can't even remember when this wasn't a dream of mine. A time to get together to feed our families and feed our souls. To break bread together and laugh and hope and dream together.
Budgeting. This is a new dream of mine. Teaching the value of money and how to get it to work for each person. It's not about the amount of money that someone makes but our view of it. Investing, saving, planning, breaking generational poverty. Affordable housing and how to make it happen!
I can close my eyes and see it. I can hear the laughter and the tears. The joy lived out and a place to express hurt and heal that hurt. A safe place. It seems like a wild crazy dream. But so was I once. And here I am, writing about a dream that God has written in Sharpie Marker. I'll never stop dreaming.
Love is worth chasing. I'll live my whole life loving. And if each one of those things doesn't happen in a building, I'll do them each separately until the dream is fulfilled.
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