Dreams Do Come True

While our intrinsic value is not based on our "performance", so often we miss the real potential that people have to offer based on age, appearance, status or their past. This a hard lesson to learn. It's also hard to learn that a real key element to living loved is nothing more than to become one another's cheerleaders.

I was reminded of this a few days ago as we travelled back to Sault Ste. Marie to meet our new granddaughter. Whenever we travel back to the Soo I often think of a fellow who has a very troubled and dysfunctional past that has a special place in my heart. I met him not long before we moved. He had just been released from prison... the place he had spent all of his adult life except for two years. When our lives crossed I believe he genuinely wanted to turn things around but as a drug dealer and addict he had many hurdles to overcome. There is much about his story that I could share but we'll leave that out and sum it up by saying that he got into trouble again and was incarcerated. In fact since we moved from the Soo he basically has been in jail.

It's hard for me to even understand why, but I've always had a special place in my heart for him and have often wondered about him, and this trip was no exception. As we drove near to where he had lived I wondered. I even asked Kyle whether he may have run into him at the hospital in the emergency department. Well all my wondering was put to rest as about fifteen minutes after I was asking Kyle about him, in the mall we came face to face with one another as I left a store. I call that a "God appointment" because it was too bizarre to be a coincidence.

While he seemed glad to see me, it seemed that he was also embarrassed because of his poor performance according to the laws of the land. In thinking about that I really believe that a central issue that he has is that his value has been based on performance. And since he hasn't done well at that it's hard to believe that his dreams of a sober, crime free life will ever happen.

And maybe it won't happen but who am I to dash his dreams by being skeptical? And by the way I don't have to say a word to communicate skepticism, my body language will speak volumes. A key element in learning to live loved means that we will look past performance and skepticism. It means that we will demonstrate a loving attitude by empowering others to live out their dreams through support and encouragement.

In a world that so often judges us and thereby squashes our dreams, here is a moving reminder that dreams do come true. I wish that my dear friend in the Soo could see this. I think he could relate to this woman and that her story would speak to him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY