Wishing...

Disclaimer... This post is different that what usually gets put on here, but more like what I think I'd LIKE it to be. ...
Remember when you were a kid, & finding a big, puffy, white dandelion was so exciting?? You could pick it & blow the seeds, & make the biggest, bestest wish from your heart!
...Somehow, somewhere along the line, it seems that we tend to lose that childlike hope & excitement. ... Unless we chose to keep it. ...& sometimes we have to fight to keep it! (The whole world wants us to grow up - be busy & productive &... &... &... & it's so easy to forget to find joy, to forget the things that kids so naturally find JOY in - like the simplicity & magic of every day!... How can we ever forget those things?!?)

I still have a lot of wishes. I wish people the best. I wish the laundry would clean & fold & get put away on its own, & that the dog poo would scoop itself. I wish the happy moments would last forever, & the sad ones would only come around enough for me to appreciate them all! I wish I were more patient, that I laughed more often & more real. I wish... I wish... I wish...

My wishes are specific & exact, broad & undefined. They may be near & dear to the secrets of my heart, or big & far reaching.

There are things I wish might have been, things I wish I understood about here & now, opportunities I wish I'd find, & those things big & small, that I hope & dream - I Wish - for the future.

I think we sometimes forget about making wishes when it seems that our dreams come crashing down in on us. I know that the plan-making part of me all but died when all of my plans fell apart... So I can believe that as we sometimes see our wishes floating into space unheard, instead of being wished upon that "Wishing Star", that be might stop "believing" in wishing.

I think that just maybe, our "grown-up" version of "wishing", just might be found in HOPE. ...& while I may not have it all figured out (or even some of it kind of figured out), I still have hope. As much of a mess as I may still sometimes be, I hope. And my greatest hope lies in Christ. Faith & hope are tightly linked, as M. Russell Ballard so perfectly put it: "As we put our faith and trust to work, hope is born."

I'll be ... "Wishing & Hoping & Thinking & Praying & Planning & Dreaming..."

Now I just need to get out there & find a dandelion to blow... :o)

to Make a Wish...

(& to take some pictures of! I LOVED these that I randomly found,

& look at all the reflective thoughts they inspired today!)

What do you wish??