That impossible dream - a meditation

There is this funny thing about dreams. When we are kids we live for them, but then we grow up and the disappointments and the people saying all the time that we need to keep both of our feet on the ground make us believe that to dream is too dangerous.

Well, I didn't learn this lesson. Who follows me (here or personally) knows that the author Philip Yancey is an inspiration to me.

I have this dream to be a writer since I was really young. I remember once when I was in middle school and we have this conversation about our future careers. One said that would be a guitarist, the other said that would be a doctor...I said with no second thoughts that I would be a writer, even though I decided at the time already that I would do Speech Therapy as a college degree.

It was about the same time when I first read the book "What's so amazing about grace". Even though it took me a few years to go back to read Yancey again, since that day he became a referential to me in many different aspects of my life. Many books later and finally a consistent idea for my own book, I decided to write him an email. Well, Philip Yancey is an international famous and award winning author, with several bestsellers, it would be understandable if he didn't answer me - but he did.

After a while I decided to write another email. The first answer could be a courtesy from a nice famous author. But about the same time Francis Collins had answered me more than once, so I decided to take a risk one more time. And the answer came once more. Each email that he would answer made me more and more enchanted by the person of Philip. Then came an interview, which was published in an important brazilian Christian website.

I was still writing but even though I had the book structure ready on my mind, for several years all that I had were drafts. I realized that if I really wanted this book to be ever published, I needed to move from home.

So, I had ressearched before about the Au Pair program, but I decided to really apply later last year with two main goals (other than the cultural exchange and the possibility to be around kids): to write and to personally meet Philip.

The fact is, as soon as he answered my first email, we started this joke with friends that I would meet him and he would invite me to go to his house, with the beautiful views of Colorado, including his library and office, and I would even meet his adorable wife.

Well, even thought I was in the US since March, months have passed by without me writing not even a single line of my book. I followed Philip's online schedule until I found out that he would be on the Wild Goose Festival, And there I was, after several hours in a bus, in North Carolina to meet him. I could barely believe that was actually him that I was seeing. Then I talked to Janet and him and was absolutely fantastic!

It was after this meeting anyway that I was finally able to put the ideas on the paper. Half of the book was done after all this time. The meeting with the Yanceys was enough for me to create discipline and  let the ideas flow from my head to the paper (and the computer screen, eventually).

Well, be able to meet Philip personally and exchange a few words with him was by itself something absolutely fantastic and so much more that I had ever dreamed about what I could do. But then the unthinkable happened. Janet invited me to spend a few days with them in their house.

I have to admit though that to dream too high can actually hurt you- the higher you are, the bigger can be the fall. But only those who are not afraid to fall are the ones that can fly. Well, that and some wings, but those are all gifts provided by the grace of God.

I think that after all, God want us to dream. Being a Christian will not make all your dreams come true or get you out of all the life complicated issues - actually it can mean the opposite sometimes. But God is a God of grace, He will always surprise us with his baffling grace.

And is this story, about this absolutely high dream that actually became true in my life the subject of my next posts here.