how to be rich

I am getting ready to take a step into a Dream. It's honestly such an exciting step that it feels more like a skip or a hop or a jump or a leap or a Reverse 1&1/2 Somersaults in the Tuck Position dive. (yes I Googled that came up with that by myself)

The Dream step is BIG. Leaving my cushy office job is a risk and I know it. Taking a job sewing hems and fixing buttons is less prestigious and I know it. It pays less and believe me do I know it. People don't understand this decision, and I know it.

But ohmygosh am I excited. Because the Dream step is just that- a step. The Dream is a step to the Big Dream. And the Big Dream is a stepping stone to the Biggest Dream. And the Biggest Dream...well, frankly, if I think about the Biggest Dream right now I find myself cowering and shrinking back from the impossibility of it all. It's such a lofty, rich, extravagant dream. It seems so perfect, almost unattainable. Soooooo I am focusing on what is right before me! C.S. Lewis said it well:

Exhale. That idea just breathes assurance into my heart. I can take a step. And then someday, another one.

So, without further adieu: all of the Dreams, each step explained and laid out to the best of my ability.

Right now the first Dream means this: I am quitting my secure, reliable, salaried, comfy, albeit boring and dull 7-5 office job. Sound the Hallelujah chorus. I am taking a job with an alterations shop, where I will be hemming pants and the like. There, I will become familiar with diferent fabrics, use new machines, and sew more straight lines than you could ever imagine. Additionally, this job's loose schedule will give me time in real life to plan, research, practice for, and execute the Big Dream.

The Big Dream is that in a few years, I would operate my own business out of my home. I would love to work as a seamstress (like my lovely Aunt), hemming and re-purposing and re-fashioning, old to new, drab to fab. Making whatever people ask me to make: bridesmaids dresses or drapes or wedding gowns or slipcovers or baby clothes. Perhaps creating and selling my own little line of whatever I want on Etsy or Big Cartel. Fueling my business (online and otherwise) through a blog. Writing and working and creating to my heart's content.

And all of that is lovely but is only a gateway to doing what I love most, to the Biggest Dream: Being freed up to serve my family well. Enjoying life with my wonderful husband and the little ones we will have running around someday. Having the incredible luxury of staying home with my children. Being able to work from home as I stay and do life with them. Continuing to join my husband in ministry, serving both our church and Young Life, inviting people into our home and loving whoever God sets before us.

And we will never be rich, and my job may never be glamorous, but this seems to me to be the richest, fullest, most priveliged and luxurious life possible.