I flew a lot in my dreams when I was a kid. It would start a bit slowly, and sometimes I rowed the air with my arms while swinging forward on a pillow to build momentum. Even now I could feel the exhilaration of taking off, sailing above land. This one particular dream was different, though. Vivid with a heaviness of meaning.

Up in the air stood a booth with wide oblong belts for sale, each with 666 stitched on. Everyone was required to buy and wear one. To refuse could mean death.

I refused.

In the dream I said it was because Jesus enabled me to fly that I wouldn’t dishonor Him. In the next moment, I found myself soaring higher than I thought possible. I perched atop a fence that scraped the sky and beheld the city below.

Fast-forward about a decade. I wished the fight between Mom and Dad were something I could wake from. It got so bad my mother and I ended up spending a surreal night in a motel. In the morning I found myself in a church van on the way to a retreat I had agreed to go to for some unaccountable reason. Broken, angry, I was one unapproachable 17-year-old who scared the counselors away. But the speaker shared something out of the book of Exodus that caught my attention. “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” The eagle pushes her young out of the nest not to abandon them but to teach them to fly. And eagles are the only birds to chase the eye of the approaching storm. Using the pressure of the fury for wings, these regal birds go right through it only to come out higher.

Into my darkness came this beacon of understanding about God’s loving dealings with His own and called to sudden memory the dream where I had flown, spurning the mark of the devil. I sensed the specialness of my dream all over again. I felt its promise of good. The reminder of the ways of eagles was meant to prepare me for the many storms I would face into adulthood. God started putting back together the shards of hopelessness in my spirit and I left the weekend retreat one radically transformed convert.

Two years later I was thrilled to settle into a large apartment-like college dorm unit. But I slowly came to feel something was off. One day while brushing my teeth, I leaned forward to study some engraving on the wall. My eyes grew wide. 666. It was carved in invisible ink but get this – one that glowed in the dark. And I discovered the number all over the walls and in the bathroom, with splotchy marks on the ceiling and an eerie stick figure of an angel on the inner door of my room. I learned from others that Christians have felt freaked out in that building, and friends urged me to request relocation.

I stayed.

I would live my old dream, meet the trial head-on. I couldn’t in good conscience flee the force of darkness with the power of light at my disposal. But it was really difficult and I actually look back in wonder at the determination of the girl twenty years my junior. I’ve grown softer since, for better and worse. Let’s just say I prayed a lot that year.

So you see that my dream has resurfaced at certain mileposts on my journey, a harbinger of the challenges and joys. Thinking about the blogging that has been so transformative for me, I made the connection once again. It’s felt like I’ve been flying. Not for my numbers, with bloggers out here who have done far better, but because writing with you has given me another life. I feel direction. I have a blueprint for my blogging. I’m not posting primarily for the likes or to raise my stats though I’m glad they help mark my blog. I don’t try to come up with the next post simply because it’s time. I don’t want to just take up space on WordPress. I hate inefficiency in all things. If I’m going to think and stomp and sing and ask why and why not and eat my words and be filled I want to do these things with you. You’ve received so well the collaborations I have tried out that you gave me a taste for what is possible in community. When I toss my list of daily to-dos and silence the noise of talk and cars, I don’t want to find at the end of the day I’d been running in a hamster’s wheel. Which I do, in many areas of my life. But on A Holistic Journey, I have drunk air that’s revived me. I go places, I daresay, on wings.

And the best part is not flying solo. Today’s sermon at church happened to cast fresh light on my ruminations on this post. The Bible does not talk about my potential, my personality, my gifts. Our personal fulfillment comes naturally when we pursue our calling. And our calling is for others. Not just in the Race Around the World but in our interaction and discussions, my purpose has been to encourage you out of your nest of fears, setbacks, uncertainties and to test those wings. Your steps echo off this blog as you hurry away to write something for your own readers. Your heart reached your mind, which they say is the longest distance between, longer than how far we are across the world. And fingering the ball and chain of my disappointments and burdens, I cheer you on to gain your ground and lift off. Because dreams do come true.