STEPPING OUT ON THE WATER

December 20004

by Sally Klein O'Connor

So there I am watching the Rodgers and Hammerstein version of Cinderella with Bonnie and Shannon. They love it. They dance the ballroom scene together. Shannie sings In My Own Little Corner.  Of course, after a while it gets a little boring because the Prince and Cinderella are talking, then they are kissing and no one is dancing. Not enough action, especially for a two and a half year old. The ten year old is sometimes intrigued by the kissing, but we don't like to encourage too much of that.

Like I said, there I am watching Cinderella. It's after midnight, the coach has already turned into a pumpkin, and our heroine is wandering home in rags. Later she relives her encounter with the Prince via a song and dance number. At this point some interest is revived in the two year old but is quickly lost when the step-sisters and step-mom engage Cinderella in dialogue. Clearly words are such a waste of time--at least from a two year old's perspective. Dancing is much more meaningful and interactive, apparently.

Well, we all know the story. The Prince is left with a single glass slipper in his hand. How will he ever find Cinderella? Or perhaps--as the king and queen suggest--maybe she is not even real. What if she is only a dream--a fantasy--something he concocted in his imagination?

As the Prince sings a song called Do I Love You?, wondering about his feelings for Cinderella and if she is real, he hears her singing back to him. As he hears her voice--we never know if it is in his mind or with his ears--we realize this is his moment of truth. He shakes off the doubts, takes hold of the dream, and pursues her with all he has.

For those of you who might not be well-versed in fairytale lore, the Prince finally finds Cinderella and they live happily ever after. . . or at least until Disney tries to make a sequel. And that's why they are called fairytales--because almost everyone lives happily ever after and that concept is just not grounded in any kind of reality we recognize, living here on planet earth in the 21st century. However, laying all that aside for a moment or two. . .

Once upon a time there were two songwriters--no, not Rodgers and Hammerstein--O'Connor and Klein. They met in an extension class being offered at CSUN (California State University at Northridge). It was a songwriting class taught by Jack Segal. O'Connor knew Jack for the lyrics he penned on a song called, Scarlet Ribbons. Klein often included in her repertoire of torch songs another of Jack's ballads called, When Sunny Gets Blue.

O'Connor and Klein wound up in the same class on the same night. Michael sat in the middle, a friendly, personable, all around likable guy. Sally sat as close to the wall as she could get. She was practically non-verbal, a funky dresser, and almost inaccessible. O'Connor wrote songs about love and happy endings. Klein wrote about impossible longings and blues. As these things sometimes happen, they were intrigued by each other's lyrics and eventually started hanging out together. Soon after they began to collaborate. O'Connor learned that a song didn't always have to end happily. Klein realized that occasionally, a positive outcome on a lyric--or even certain moments in life-- could be a good thing. As they talked and wrote and generally spent time together they realized they had a dream in common--to write songs that mattered--songs that would touch people's lives.

At the time, it never occurred to them that a larger, more masterful hand might have helped them notice each other. That the One who created and endowed them with gifts and talents had a purpose and plan for their collaboration. No, at the time, they were entirely ignorant of such things and much too consumed with each other to notice how certain threads in their lives seemed to be woven together.

I believe God births us with His dreams tucked away somewhere in our DNA, buried like treasure until we one day wake to His call on our souls. On our own we scratch and sniff, trying to find the thing that will satisfy the itch for something more than our 9 to 5 careen through life. Like the Prince, who could have had his pick of any maiden in his kingdom, or beyond if he so desired, most of us are looking for something more.

Ultimately, that something more can't be found on this planet. Scripture tells us we are aliens and strangers on this earth. We won't find total satisfaction here because He has put heaven in our hearts. But along with heaven there are plans and purposes He created us to fulfill, giving us special talents and gifts to equip us to participate in those dreams God is forming in our souls. Stepping into those dreams is like walking on water or finding the owner of a glass slipper.

Then there are always voices--external and internal--that are only too happy to tell us we have no business dreaming. For Jacob's son, Joseph it was his brothers' voices. They felt threatened by his visions and belittled them. Later they tried to destroy Joseph completely. Moses faced a nation of discontent--the very nation God sent him to deliver. When deliverance didn't arrive immediately and circumstances became even more difficult the Israelites cried out against Moses, as they would later cry out against God in the desert. After all, faith is a luxury for lunatics. Practical people make rational decisions that can be measured on paper in terms of pros and cons, gains and losses. But that is not what the Bible says. It commends the dreamers, those who walked by faith and beheld some portion of their dream fulfilled. Even more esteemed are those who saw none of it fulfilled in their lifetime but never gave up as they followed in faith where God called them to go. As it says in Hebrews 11:38 "--the world was not worthy of them." In an age of instant gratification it is a novel concept to faithfully follow the vision the Lord puts in your heart though you may never see it achieved.

We are afraid to step into those dreams, even as the Israelites were to walk into the land that first time. They could still taste the leeks and onions from Egypt. The imprint of chains lingered in their minds and hearts. God had displayed His power and glory, His ability to provide, but it wasn't enough to overcome the phantom fears of this people He had chosen to bear His Name. The Israelite spies were overwhelmed when they saw the inhabitants of the land the Lord had promised to give them. They did not believe God would lead them to victory over these people and deliver the land into their hands. So they balked, retreating into a slave mentality instead of stepping into the freedom God had set before them. That generation never tasted the fruit and richness of the land God had promised. They chose their nightmares over the dream.

There are always giants who seem an impossible obstacle to the visions God has given us to live out. In order to overcome them we need to rely on our Lord. But first we must believe Him more than even what we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears. Isn't that what faith is all about?

Every now and then I realize what an incredible privilege God has given Michael and I, to use our gifts to magnify His Name. To touch the hearts of people who are broken and lost through the avenue of a song or story. When I fully connect to the awesome opportunities God has provided in our lives to participate in His plan--I am in awe! Did we even know what we were saying when we talked about writing "songs that mattered?" Even if we didn't--God did! And He never forgot about it either, even when Michael and I had all but given up.

Henry Blackaby says in his workbook, Experiencing God: "I have come to the place in my life that, if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something that I know I can handle, I know it probably is not from God. The kind of assignments God gives in the Bible are always God-sized. They are always beyond what people can do, because He wants to demonstrate His nature, His strength, His provision, and His kindness to His people and to a watching world."

God invites us to participate in something He is already doing which is something we can't accomplish on our own.

A whisper crossed my heart in the summer of 2002--and with it came a title, an outline, and ideas. But there was no time in my life to sit down and write a book. Besides, I didn't know how, although that hasn't ever stopped me before. The whisper was full of the possibility and plan of writing this particular book, still it seemed entirely impractical and probably impossible.

Finally I prayed, Lord, if this is something You are putting on my heart You will have to give it to me because there is not enough time in my life for something like this. After I prayed I still had to choose whether or not I would sit down in front of the word processor and start to write. I did, and found there was indeed a book to be written. It seemed to exist just like those famous "good works which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10) The story was already there waiting for me to walk in its footsteps. And if I had never sat down with the intention of writing the things I felt stirring in me perhaps it might just as easily have faded away like some phantom in the rain.

So how do you know when the dream stirring in your heart is from God? I think you can only know when you start to walk out on the water. And even if it is not God He is gracious and merciful to us, using every experience in our lives to mold and make us more like Christ. As we respond to Him He moves toward us. And even if we fall into the waves He can and does pull us out and set us back into the boat. The greater tragedy would be if we never stepped out on the water.

If the Prince had believed his mother and father he would never have gone seeking the foot that filled that see-through slipper. He would never have found Cinderella and learned what a miracle she was. He might never have tasted the sweetness of hope fulfilled. Eventually the songs she sang to him would have drifted out of his memory as would her face and their midnight kiss. He would have been left holding a single glass slipper in his hand--wondering . . .

                                                                                        © Copyright 2004 Improbable People Ministries

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