Matt, Christen, Derek & Rylie

Dreams and Master's
Today I went to Mother's Together at our church. I was challenged and motivated by what the speaker had to say and I wanted to write down some of my thoughts. The speaker began by asking the question,  "Is there something outside of being a mom that you want to accomplish? What do you want to do when your kids are gone?"

The speaker went on to make the point that when you are working on something that is your own it makes life more interesting and mothering more significant. I couldn't agree to that more. I have definitely noticed that after a morning of working at Trinity or an afternoon of tutoring, I can't wait to come home and play with Derek! I feel better about myself, energized from passions God has blessed me with, and feel much more intentional about my time with Derek.

Another point the speaker made was that kids often think they are the center of the universe, but can be taught that other people also have important things going on too when they see you, as a parent, have something outside of mothering that you are involved with. It is great for kids to see you go through a process of pursuing our own dreams and watching you mess up along the way. Nothing great happens in life unless you learn how to fail. What great life lessons and opportunities present themselves in failure!

In addition, the speaker encouraged us to imagine our dream and present it to God, praying about it, before trying to plan out every detail. My personality is one to wait for the perfect time to accomplish my dream, or wait until I have the whole dream planned out before I am even willing to imagine what it might look like. I was encouraged that God gives you a dream for a purpose and often the reason is the process you must go through to accomplish to the dream.

This leads me to one of my dreams....I have always wanted to go back to school and get my masters degree. Matt and I have always talked about when he got a job that it would be my turn to go back to school. So...now that we he has accepted a position at ASU, I am going to get my masters in Educational Leadership. So much of what the speaker said today resonated with following my dream and keeping up with my passion of teaching. All year long, Matt has encouraged me, supported me, and sacrificed for me as I tutored, taught classes, and worked on projects at the school I used to teach at. He came home from work early, stayed up late working to make up for time he babysat, rescheduled meetings (and MANY other things)  just so I could keeping doing the things that make me me this year. THANK YOU MATT!!

After 10 years of being out of school, I will be going back this fall. Matt continues to support and encourage me in this process. There will be many new challenges as I pursue my dream, but I know that it will be worth it. Derek will benefit in watching me pursue my dream, learning that mama has something important (other than him) she is doing and having more intentional time with me. I will have something in addition to being a mother and wife that defines me. This is just the my first dream and I hope to have more. I want to have something to do when our kids are grown up.