In my high school junior year, I had a 6 month period of insomnia. During that time I couldn’t dream. One day at lunch, my good friend Dana Bartekowski was talking about a strange dream she had involving a robotic pelican. I was jealous.
When it came to bed time I fearfully went into my nightly routine. When I hit the pillow, no matter how exhausted I felt, my mind raced all night making it impossible to dream. My Junior year was packed with events and deadlines. In truth I was overcommitted in drama and music. I performed in nine plays that year and countless singing events. Ironically, it was the robotic pelican dream that really made me see I was missing out, and had to start saying “no” to something. Fortunately, the last day of school came and the pressure let up as the hot Iowan summer rolled in.
In an effort to touch my goal of being an actress I had saturated myself in theater that year. In the spot light I felt free, even if it was for a split second. It was like I was catapulted high into the atmosphere, reaching out my hand toward the airy wisp of my aspiration, for a thrilling moment, I thought I could poke it. The composition of a dream though is very non substantial. Like water vapor coming off a raging tea kettle it can be seen and felt, but it can’t be handled. So I touched the dream, but I couldn’t sleep afterwards.
Dream chasing is like that, it is an ambitious quest that takes many merits to prove that you drew close enough to the vaporous aspiration to call it accomplishment. For becoming an actress, I thought long and hard about that dream and compared it to the created purpose I started seeing emerge in my life and heart.
Through that eleventh grade year I also attended youth group and church on Sundays. During those services God began to speak to me. “Dianne, you were made for more than making a name for yourself, you were made to bring people closer to me.” I sat stunned and bewildered, how could God use me? Soon the music Pastor invited me to sing for the congregation on a Sunday morning. This opportunity had never been allotted to a high school student before. Excited I agreed to sing and started my quest to find the right song. One month later I sang, “His Eye is On the Sparrow.”
In all the plays and singing events I had ever done, I had never seen the power of God move people like I did that Sunday morning. I had also never experienced the power of God move me like it did that day. After I was finished the last note I wept, because I felt like I had touched something higher than a dream. I had reached out unknowingly and bumped into my purpose.
There is something within each one of us that is divinely planted. Like a seed is dropped into the ground by a skillful gardener and gently covered by soil, so each one of us has a divine destiny to shine in this world. On that Sunday morning in a newly purchased modest flower print dress, I stood shaking under a power I now call anointing.
As I returned to my seat after the song, and the Pastor continued his message I quietly thanked God. In that moment I vowed to chase God not my dreams, because I knew he would take me to that place beyond dream, that place of purpose.
After high school graduation I was led to a bible college to pursue drama and music. After graduation I have dabbled in drama, but I have been saturated in music. It has at times felt like a lot of work, but on those Sunday mornings as I stand on the platform with the microphone in my hand opening the gates of praise through worship, I feel it again. The eerie sense of purpose and the indescribable power of God moving through me and touching hearts all across the congregation. The movement beyond dream to purpose again reminds me there is no better place to be than in the will of God and in the middle of one’s unique created purpose.
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