We all know how important that first line in an essay (or blog post) is. We learned back in middle school. That's the line that makes the audience decide whether they are going to keep reading. It has to be catchy. It has to grab the reader, draw them in...and I have backspaced my first line a million times.

I've got no good intro so I guess I'll just jump in.

Can that be okay for tonight? I mean, I'm bound to have 15 or 20 good intros this month, so a few super boring, sub par ones are acceptable right?

Back at the 10 days of prayer I did something new. It was pretty outlandish actually.

I have been carrying around this secret dream for nearly a year. An aching secret dream that I have mentioned to God in prayer a time or two, but knew it wasn't really n the realm of human possibility so I prayed things like "God, you know I really want this but I know it's probably not your will so help me to be content."

The same God I begged and believed would heal my daughter, I just wrote off as wanting me to have this other impractical dream. Sometimes I have to laugh at my own ridiculousness.

So here I was, at day 7 or so and sitting in my "personal prayer time" seat. Listening to the worship music and focusing on God and trying to be quiet and listen...and I started to pray about this dream.

Now let me be clear. It wasn't just big like "We need a new car." It was crazy big...and the desire for it was nearly crushing. To the point of tears at the thought of it being a dream never realized. For months I carried this around. Aching in my soul.

So I start to really be honest with God and pour my emotion all over the pew. I was utterly transparent in my dream. In the crushing weight of it. I poured it all out and gave it 100% to God, knowing he might say "no".

And I think that was my fear all along, that He would say "no" when I wanted to hope for a yes more than anything.

My God has plans for my life that are better than anything I can ever imagine. He has shown me that time and time again. In so many ways He has shown me...but this dream, it felt to big to let go of.

Until that day. I let it all go.

And it wasn't until last week that I realized that the heaviness and burden for my outlandish dream had vanished. I was no longer dragging around this heavy sack of fear and desire. God totally has freed me from it, by taking my burden as His. Even for something as simple as *my* crazy dream.

As for the answer to my crazy prayer? Maybe this post would be better if I ended with "And you know what? As soon as I let it go He said YES!!" But in truth, I'm fairly certain the answer is "No, this isn't my plan for you, sweet daughter". The amazing part is, I'm okay with that. Not just okay...but great with that. Because my dream was pretty big and amazing, so if He's got better for me? How can that be bad.