Dream & Dream BIG!!!

Did you ever have a lemonade stand as a kid? I did. I never really wanted to try & make anything really great out of it, but it was fun to sell it to people passing by. Did you ever have a goal or a dream that people didn't understand? I still have them to this day. The key is to have people around you that support you, they don't have to "get it" but the support makes such a difference in the way we perceive what is possible in our lives. I heard about this short little video on the radio the other day. And each time I watch it it warms my heart (note here if you don't want to well up with happy tears...don't watch it). It gave me the same feeling of joy that I experienced in the knowing that my friends helped me fulfill my dream of skydiving. I still love you guys!!! You know who you are:) 

The protagonist, Caine, in this video has but a simple goal in his 10 year old life, to have his own arcade. Some may think that it is too lofty a goal...impossible even for a 10 year old to accomplish such a feat. But, by whose standards? What do you think of when you think of an arcade? Games of course. I think about all the arcades that I went to growing up the games that dispense ticket for prizes, the cacophonous noise of the game alarms going off, kids whooping and hollering at their wins and losses, these noise that over whelm a persons sense of hearing. Maybe there is food involved like pizza...ahhh Chucky Cheese...but I digress. These are the general assumptions that we make when judging an adequate arcade. But what about ingenuity? What about a child's creativity and inability to accept "defeat"? These skills in most children today are not cultivated or endorsed, which makes me sad. However, Caine has it in spades. I hope that you take the 10 minutes to watch this short video and that it inspires you to see what can happen when a person has a dream that is bigger than they are.




Here is also a link to the website that has been designed around Caine's Arcade. If you are so inclined to continue on and see what else has transpired for him. All it takes is a little time and kindness and you too can help someone's dreams come true.

A Place of Refuge

For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.

~ Isaiah 25:4 ~

I have a calendar that has the italicized portions of this scripture on it, and as I was working out today I was in a position to where I could really read the words and it got me thinking on the things that have not thought on in a while. Primarily to the storms that have taken place in my life. Not on the storms that I didn't have any control over, because I know that the Lord is a refuge during those times. But it had me thinking about the storms that I have at times almost gotten myself in to. 

The enemy doesn't always attack from the outside, sometimes he manifests himself on the inside to in the ways of using our emotions and imaginations as weapons against us. A refuge isn't just a place to "hide out" in while the storm is taking place, but it's a place to go to for protection when you can see it coming. Sometimes you don't even know you need to go to it, but it is offered up to you as a place of rest when you are to overwhelmed, or tired to think anymore about what is going on. It's during those times that the refuge of God's words and promises can offer clarity and peace and protection from even our own selves because who else knows me, or you, better than the One who made us. It's because of that knowledge that He can protect us when we don't know any better, or we want to nurse thought, or emotions that will ultimately do us no good.

So in case you need it here are the refuges you can go to when all else fails....

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
~ 2Co 10:5 ~

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

~ Philippians 4:8 ~

Stop by these refuges sometime...stay a while too...it does a soul good!