Sometimes God gives you this glimpse into who you want to be.

Do you know what I mean?

Maybe you’ve been pregnant and watched kids on a playground and it took your breath away because you knew that was your future 0r maybe you’ve wanted to be an actress and watching someone accept an Oscar make something inside of you catch fire.

It’s like you see someone and you think, “I see what she/he is doing and I know deep in my knower that is who I want to be.”

I was supposed to be at Passion 2013 this week with my small group girls. Because of some new developments with work [eep! more info soon!], I had to back out and instead, I’ve been watching online.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched Louie Giglio’s opening session. As it came to an end, he brought his lifelong best friend up on stage, Andy Stanley.

Then they begin to discuss an influential youth leader in their lives- the impact that leader had, how that leader had given them opportunities and put up with them when they were crazy teen dudes. You could hear the love in Louie’s voice and he even said that he and Andy loved this leader so much that they may cry.

I waited to see the guy they were talking about, wondering who he was, would I recognize him from Atlanta, so on and so forth.

And then? It was a woman.

And I immediately thought of this picture from last summer.

I have this dream in my life that I don’t ever really talk about very much, but I’ve always wanted sons. I really want sons. Like really really. I have always dreamed about being part of raising boys into Godly men. I mean, it’s one of those deep-in-my-heart dreams. Until I get married and have kids, this is the next best thing- investing in the young men that God places in the ministries where I volunteer. Even once I do have kids, this right here? These boys will always have a place in my heart.

So I cried [shocking no one] when I watched the Passion livestream because I saw my future. If I do my job now, THAT is my future.

You know this if you volunteer with kids, youth, or college- but you are just constantly planting seeds. Planting planting planting. And seed bears fruit, even if we never see it. But yesterday, I watched Louie and Andy and the woman that loved them when they were teenagers, and there she stood, 83 years old, seeing the fruit.

I’m not pushing any vocation on my boys- I don’t know where they will be in fifty years – when I’m 83 – but I know this. I will stand between them in 2063, proud of how they have lived, how they have loved, and who they have become.

I’m so grateful for that glimpse yesterday of the kind of woman I want to be and what it will look like for my dream to come true.

. . . . .

Where are you planting seeds?