In 2013 I saw a dress online that I felt I just couldn’t live without. It was everything I loved... pink, lightweight and on trend. All the celebs of the day were wearing it and one day I found it online on sale. Dream come true for a fashion forward gal in her 20’s right?! Well that dress, the one I couldn’t do without, the one I absolutely needed to have... hung in my wardrobe unused for 8 years. Yes! hanger, tags, plastic dust cover... everything in tact as a storefront frock usually is.
January 2021 the dress finally made its debut outfit appearance, two years shy of a decade since its purchase. Why? You might ask. I don’t even have a justifiable reason to proffer. A piece of clothing I once couldn’t contain my excitement over, yet I never made use of it. Not once. Instead I remember telling my father that if I died, he was to ensure I was buried in it.
That singular memory caused me deep introspection as I recently pulled it out the wardrobe assessing its quality. It reminded me in some tangible way of all the dreams I had placed in my mind’s wardrobe over the years. Every goal that I secretly wanted to set for myself and ended up shelving because of fear, self-doubt or lack of confidence. Those subconscious thoughts, habits and emotions that so often control our lives and prevent us from stepping into our God designed greatness.
Have you ever been so excited about an idea, only to have it fizzle with time and then to see someone else later bring your very idea successfully to life? Just like the dress, so on-trend that everyone wore it and made it their own; while I did not. To know that I almost settled for never seeing it on me but rather, worn after my life ended. The words of Les Brown cry out to me - “The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream.”
If there is anything you take away from this reading, heed this - delay your dreams and goals no more. As you think about them, realize that time is the most valuable commodity. Use it well. Shift the paradigm of procrastination and begin to act. Dare to dream. The world is your oyster. There is nothing you cannot achieve. Don’t spend so many years merely existing that you forget how to use the imagination. Be a dreamer. Use your gifts now. For so many are never used and end up making the cemetery rich. It’s time to rob the cemetery! Leave nothing there. For when the hour does come, you would have left this earth an empty vessel, completely used for good. Refuse to die an un-lived life!