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My family has a recurring conversation in the car every year on our twenty hour road trip home from Canada. We talk about how we will spend the money after we win the lottery. You know, it’s up to $425 million this week. It’s good to dream isn’t it?

It’s something my husband knows how to do well, a practice I never allowed myself to do until I met him. Dream.

The potential of winning the lottery provides an opportunity that cultivates broad perspective, unearthing the hidden desires of our children’s hearts so they can bloom. Unfamiliar (to me) car names are mentioned, along with exotic places and giving money away to friends. We love a boisterous, opinionated conversation full of laughter.

I learned not to take dreaming for granted when I started mentoring troubled teens. When I asked what they would do if time and money weren’t obstacles, the answer I got was sleep. I’m not kidding.

I didn’t win the lottery but it’s my birthday today, so I’m indulging myself, asking you to dream with me.

If I could celebrate my birthday without any limits or obstacles,  this is how I would do it.

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I would turn the car around and go back to Canada and meet you at the cottage. Show you the stack of seven books I read in two weeks and share notes penned on the clean pages of my emerald green Moleskine; notes I took after worshipful walks retracing familiar rock embedded ruts on our private dirt road.

We would stand together on the shores of the virtuous still lake, pushing our toes into the sand while holding our breath, captivated by God’s artistry streaked in shades of pink and violet and blue at twilight. A flock of thirty-five geese glide effortlessly a few feet from the shoreline.

Our arms wrap around our stomachs in laughter when we hear ourselves speak fears and worries about the future. Seeing empathy on our cheeks, it all seems so silly in comparison to the mirrored ripples of water holding color beneath all that beauty.

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I flip through the pages of Bread and Wine, show you the recipes that make us salivate right before I scoop heaping mounds of curry on your plate; our favorite dish in the collection. Liquid crimson stems await and then we indulge in oversize slices of my daughter’s blueberry pie covered in melting pools of vanilla.

Capping off the day, we count shooting stars while leaning our heads back, focused on an ebony cape sprinkled with sparkling crystal dust. You and I, we take turns casting wishes on each streaky slide of white, like blowing out candles for each year of our lives.

We marvel over how blessed we are. And we don’t need to win a lottery to realize that.  Belonging to Him is priceless.

What would you wish for, if there weren’t any obstacles?

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The most generous gift you can give me today as I celebrate my birthday is to leave a comment, Subscribe to my blog and like my Facebook page. If you feeling extra generous, you can buy this book where I’m being published and help thousands of Africans access clean water. I want to link arms with you and this is the way I know how to do it, when I don’t have the luxury of the dream.