I Have Tangible Evidence That a Dream Can Come True

I reached out my hand and took the book. I felt the weight of it, I ran my hand over it's smooth surface and I couldn't hide the smile that spread across my face. This had been a dream of mine for thirty years. It took me five years to be bold enough to voice my dream and twenty five more years for the dream to materialize. I want to share with you my book's birth story.

Thirty years ago while teaching a class about spiritual gifts I realized that I had the spiritual gift of encouragement so I began to pray and ask God how I could exercise this gift. As I prayed about how to encourage others I began to think about being a speaker and a writer. Thirty years ago I shared my idea with someone who was very close to me they responded with a look of deep concern and then the words, "Oh Sarah!" escaped their lips before they could retract them. But I understood their concern, it wasn't that they wanted to hurt me, on the contrary, they didn't want me to be hurt.

In the second grade when all the other pupils were learning how to read, write and spell I was learning that I didn't measure up. I struggled with dyslexia but in but in 1960 they simply called it being stupid. I learned this lesson very well and came to understand that there were things that people like me could not do and should not try. The person I shared my dream of speaking and writing with knew about my disability and didn't want to see me fail in such a public arena. However, there was something I wanted to say so badly that I was willing to take the risk, only I didn't know how.

The message I wanted to share had first been written on my soul. Not only did I suffer from being dyslexic but from my earliest memories I struggled with depression. I look back on the black and white pictures of my childhood and I am struck by the somber expression on my face. I read once that the average four year old laughs over 300 times a day I was far, far below average. Then one day light began to penetrate my darkness and hope was born.

I learned about the love of Jesus Christ and this love became the mirror through which I could see my true reflection. At thirteen I began to read my Bible every day hungry and thirsty for the love I found there. I began to stop identifying myself by my disability and instead I started to think about the love that God had lavished on me by sending His Son to give me life. I began to place my confidence in this love. I began to put my expectations in His promises. I began to hope.

Hope began to express itself through faith and I began to experience joy and peace I had never known before. It was just to good to keep to myself I had to share it or I felt like I would burst! I loved getting invited to speak but I still wanted to share this hope with more people and the only
I could think to share with more people was in written form but how could someone like me do that?

It took me five more years before I could build up the courage to express my dream again out loud. This time I shared it with my friend Vivian. She had been attending a class I was teaching. Vivian is someone who knows how to make things happen. No sooner had I told her my secret than she had found a writer's convention at Moody Bible Institute. She made all the arrangements, drove me there and even babysat my daughter Elisabeth between the sessions! Still I felt paralyzed whenever I thought of writing.

Looking back over the last few years I realize it was God using other people's gift in my life that finally gave substance to my dream. My son Andrew who set up my Blog for me. My friend Susan who never stopped encouraging me. Chris Fabry who read my Blog  "Class Isn't Sarah Stupid?" on his radio program even though what I sent him was filled with errors.

Then several months ago my friends Ruth and Esther Wilson volunteered to take my Blogs and edit them and format them and do all those other things I can't even name. "Sarah, you write and we will do everything else." And they did! "A Ministry of Hope" is not my ministry this book is not just something I've done. I have discovered through the writing and publishing of this book that it takes many people exercising their spiritual gifts to birth a dream.