If you are reading this, you are part of making my God-sized dream come true: THANK YOU! 

Last Friday, I was excited beyond words to return to my former elementary school to read one of the stories from my book, Life with Bobby and Bonnie, then give a copy of my book to each student in the 4th grade class. This is my God-sized dream: share stories with at risk kids about how Jesus loves them, and to give them a book of their own to remind them of that love.  My God-sized dream is to share a message of love, hope and forgiveness with kids who need it most through my books.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of a darling six-year-old girl, named Angel, who was shot down in a 7-Eleven parking lot.  Her cousin, one of my former students, is one of the students in the class I visited.  It wasn't an accident that I had an opportunity to share in Isaiah's class last week.  The Lord knew Isaiah needed validation and a reminder that Jesus loves kids. 

When I texted my friend, Rosie, who teaches the class to say I was sending a book for Isaiah to share with Angel's family,  she thought that was pretty cool. Reminded Rosie this is what I retired to do, reach out to hurting kids and families with the love of Jesus.

There are so many kids out there who are sad and scared and lost.  I believe Jesus calls some of us, including me, to minister to "the least of these". I'm hoping to share with some kids at a church in town soon that is trying to reach out to its declining neighborhood. What better Christmas gift could there be than hope?

I bet you have a dream.  Maybe you're like me and chasing after it with all the passion, resources and energy you can muster.  Perhaps there used to be a dream, but life got hard and the dream became too slippery to hold onto while trying to hold onto everything you and your family needed.  With all the voices in the world, it's possible in a young world that you haven't heard your dream's song yet.

Your dream is out there. Your name is written on it, nobody's but yours.  I have been richly blessed by the encouragement to dream and to hope by some incredible Christian writers and speakers lately. Devoted people like Holley Gerth, Beth Moore, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer and Mark Batterson. Please check them out online.  Their words can stir a soul to reveal the dream within you, or to fuel your hard work.

I'm not sure how or where the Lord is going to send me next with His message and my stories.  What I am sure about is that He wouldn't give me a dream that He didn't plan on supporting.  So far on the journey, He's taught me a great deal about vision, trust, obedience, faith and perseverance.  Perhaps a closer, more intimate walk with Him is really what the dream is all about.

Thank you again for your part in making my dream come true!  Whether it's viewing or liking a post, purchasing a copy of Life with Bobby and Bonnie, or offering up prayers, you are a critical partner in this infant ministry.  My prayer is that the Lord will bless you and your God-sized dream as much as you are blessing mine.

Growing up, I had some kind of crazy ideas of things I thought would be fun, like milking a cow, making mud pies...  Growing up, I had one pragmatic parent and one doting parent.  Mama had lived through some pretty hard things in her life, not to mention the Great Depression and World War II.  She was always the pragmatist.  Living through the same world events, but in the context of a stable, loving family, Daddy tended to be more doting.  Being named for Daddy's mother may have added just a tad more indulgence on Daddy's part.

Mama religiously lived by the axiom, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness."  She was notorious for washing clothes and kids.  To put it mildly, making mud pies was repugnant to Mama.  Why on earth would anyone want to get their hands and clothes and everything else dirty on purpose?  I just wanted to know what the mud would fee like in my fingers and hands, and to find out if you could really shape it into something that resembled a pie.

My mud pie curiosity used to drive my teachers crazy, but they didn't teach it out of me.  Now, that curiosity makes me wonder what will happen if I click on this or that button, or follow a link. Thankfully, there's usually someone around to help me out if I go down the wrong rabbit hole, online or off.

In the last several months, mud pie curiosity has taken me to a lot of new places in technology and on the Internet, like starting a blog, doing a "link-up" for the 31 Day Blogging Challenge, and discovering I could check Gmail on my phone.  I heard a speaker at an educators's conference a few years ago say that those in our generation (baby boomers, or nearly) are aliens in technology while today's generations are native born.  How true, but I'd rather be encouraged by Captain Kangaroo who allegedly said, "Slow and steady wins the race."   

Tom and I are big M.A.S.H. fans.  One of the funniest episodes pertained to a child stranded in a minefield.  Okay, that's not funny, but since it was M.A.S.H. we knew the child would be fine.  The funny part was Colonel Henry Blake and his faithful sidekick, Radar, looking for a map of the landmines, and then trying to read it.  Henry was totally out of his element trying to read a grid, and started rattling off standard measurement equivalencies. I guess you had to be there, but if you're familiar with the show and the character you totally get it.  Maybe you've felt the same panic and confusion when thrust into unknown territory, literally or figuratively.

Embracing technology to build a platform for my book had been a combination of mud pie curiosity, and minefield puzzlement.  There's just so much to learn and figure out!  Does anyone else feel that way?  And what about this?  Just exactly who are you supposed to be addressing when you post on Facebook, my kid's Sunday School teacher or the cute guy at the office?  Are there rules for posting, you know like maybe grammar or etiquette rules?

Are you an alien or native?  Do you tend to be more mud pie curious or try to figure out the grid to the minefield? Where are you hoping your journey will take you?

Ten years ago, maybe longer, God decided to begin doing a greater work in me when he took me out of WASPy school districts and dropped me right in the middle of an urban school district.  Talk about culture shock.  After one semester in a district-wide curriculum position, I landed in the secondary alternative school.  Ouch!  The agreed upon expectations, rules and courtesies I was used to no longer existed. 

My previous twenty years in education were marked by lots of parental involvement and support. There seemed to be unwritten laws about respect, authority, and student work. Parent contributions for seasonal parties usually exceeded "need", and family events were well attended. Students arrived at school the first day of school with a backpack and grocery bag full of school supplies from the published list. Makeup work was usually for students who had extended illnesses or to be completed while the family went on a trip, which they notified the school about ahead of time.  Everyone seemingly had what they needed.

Although I served in five different schools in the urban school district, there were some consistencies among them.  If half of the enrolled students in my class came with all their school supplies during the first week of school, that was great.  What wasn't great was that teachers were expected to purchase what was needed for the other students from their own resources.  Despite the many organizations and agencies that provided uniforms, a couple of students started late because they didn't have any.  One or two of the girls started a day or two late because all the girls in the family were getting new braids. It took me a few years to understand a new ideology for ranking priorities.

Because the distinctions between cultures was so blaring, it seemed impossible not to compare. Worse, comparisons always favored the white bread land that I had come from.  For at least five years, I really believed God was punishing me.  Acclamation was slow at best and painful at times. Just to show how much He loved me, God wouldn't let me give up.  At the time, I felt like I was trapped in "urban hell".  No amount of job applications, great interviews, etc. yielded a change in districts.  I was stuck.

Then something happened.  Oh, nothing specific that I can put my finger on.  Not sure if I gave up or gave in, but at last I knew I was exactly where the Lord wanted me to be.  That's when the change began.  The circumstances didn't  change, I did.  I began to look at my students and families as children of God, just like me and mine.  We had innumerable differences, but in the one big thing, we were alike: God loved us all.  And then the learning began, a lot for me, and I think, more for my students.

One thing I learned is that just because families don't look the same in composition, membership or SES (socioeconomic status), those things don't necessarily determine family dynamics or priorities. Mostly, but not entirely in any setting, adults love kids and take their roles of protection and provision very seriously.  Typically, kids reflect the adults's perspectives. The greater diversity of families, the greater diversity of perspectives.  And almost without exception, no matter how dire the circumstances, kids trust and will defend the adults consistently in their lives.

And here's the sad thing I learned.  Far too often, the concentric circles of influence in children's lives can have a negative impact as well as a positive one.  I learned this the hard way my first year at the alternative school.  That winter someone in the school was affected by a violent death, on average every three weeks, sometimes more often. As devastating as that was, the fact that only one or two of those deaths were newsworthy spoke volumes. And hearing comments basically saying it was just another black kid, was more than heart-breaking. I saw his family members or friends every day and knew he wasn't "just another black kid", he was someone who was loved and cared about.  

A conversation with my aunt several years earlier began to ring in my brain.  Both of Aunt Anna's sons were extremely successful in their particular fields.  Mary was eight years old, and James was five during that visit, so I asked Aunt Anna what she and my uncle had done to promote their sons's successes.  She told me very simply that from an early age, they told the boys their expectations: go to college, work hard, do your best and do what you love.

Urban educators understand that before you can instill expectations, you must build relationships, which go far beyond assignments and assessments. So I watched more closely and listened a lot more to what my students were saying, and not saying.  I vigorously searched for connections my students and I might have. Then, and only then, I began to tell my students, explicitly, what I expected (which always included college, hard work and doing their best).  

In all likelihood, I will never know how my students have chosen to lead their lives.  That's probably true of a lot of teachers. Sad as that may be, it doesn't really matter.  As long as I have frequently, consistently, provided positive expectations to my students, I will have done my job.

What expectations do you have for yourself and those you love?  What expectations have been imposed upon you?  

My kids are all exceptional photographers.  Each one has their specialty.  Mary has grown very adept at capturing unique expressions of the granddaughters. James has become quite astute at seeing uniqueness in nature. Rachael enjoys snatching unusual shots of locations.

The pictures I love the most are the elusive ones, the ones too big for the camera lens.  The picture doesn't do justice to Annalyn's cute face, but no camera could grab and contain her face, her voice as she watched the circus for the first time. And I didn't want to miss the moment by focusing the lens and checking the light.  Sometimes the best pictures are the ones we store in our hearts, not on a card.

Some days I wonder if getting Life with Bobby and Bonnie, with its message of love, hope and forgiveness is more of a spiritual journey or digital.  I can always use work in both.

Last week when speaking with the wonderful Kimberly at Xulon Press about marketing, she sent me the link to Amazon's author page.  Cool!  One more way to reach out to potential readers/buyers. 

No problem, I think to myself.  After all, I've got a blog, I created a Kickstarter project (both with lots of help from James), so surely I can do this, right?

Nooot!  I managed to cut, paste and edit my bio and picture, no problem.  I can update later if I like. Super:)  Oh look, there's a place to attach my blog.  I've attached it other places, so let's give it a shot.

You guessed it!  Alice got a little cocky with the bio and pic.  I tried several times, went to the blog, not Weebly, where I create it, no dice.  Went back to Amazon, read the directions again. Nada:(  Gave up. Went back the next day, still no luck.

Here's where it gets a bit funny.  Since knowing for sure the Kickstarter funding project didn't pan out, then saying and writing that we're not done, it's just up to the Lord to work things out, I've felt like a huge weight has been lifted.  Alrighty, let's give the Amazon author's page another shot.

Son of a gun!  It only took one false try, slowing down my brain, thinking through the directions again, and VOILA!  My blog is now linked to my author's page on Amazon!  

That may not sound like much to you, but God knows my feeble heart so well and understood that I needed a victory today, so He sent two.  Attaching my blog to my author's page was one, and the other was my sister, Nancy, sending another affirmation after getting her message about Kickstarter. Nancy's generous and unwavering support is very important to me.  It's kind of weird, but since both our parents and our brother have passed, it's like Nancy is loving on me for all of them, too.  That assuages my heart (are you impressed with that big word?).

But, God gets into us so deep that He understands our brains need reassurance, along with our hearts.  I hope you can celebrate this small victory with me, not linking the blog, but remembering that "I can do everything God asks me to with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power," (Phillipians 4:13). Thanks for tagging along today.