Pregnant with a dream
 
It was a typical Saturday, hanging out with family and I get a text from a friend. She had a dream that I was pregnant… with twins. I laughed it off at first but after a few days, still couldn't shake it. I typically take dreams very seriously as they are often times prophetic for me. Not two weeks later I start having physical symptoms that point in every way towards actual pregnancy. Sheer panic sets in clouded by totally irrational thoughts. Irrational thoughts because my husband had already had a vasectomy and there was only a 1% chance that the body could heal itself and reverse the outcome of the surgery. But, my husband is the healthiest person I know so certainly he, of all people, would fall into that 1%, right?

During this time, two or three other random things happen that also point towards pregnancy like a friend accidentally sending me a text asking how the pregnancy is going, intending it to actually go to a different friend! While lost in a swirl of emotions, I somehow convinced myself that I am indeed pregnant...with twins. And like any sane woman, what do you do next but pick out names for your certainly coming babies. I decide to myself that I had not gone quite hippie enough with my first two kids names and that if in fact I am pregnant, these babies are going to be named Atlas & Arrow. Weird, I know. But, God works in mysterious ways.
 
As it turns out, the physical symptoms subsided within a week and all went back to normal. Whew! However the pregnancy theme continued. My friend Jamie gave a word at church that there were several people pregnant with a dream that God was about to birth in them. Some were in transition about to give birth and some were pregnant and didn’t even know it. Being the slow learner that I am at times, I was of the later group and hadn’t quite put the pieces together yet. I was pregnant with a dream and I didn't even know it.
 
Life goes on and it is time for our annual trip to Montana in the Summer of 2016. This is my time to rest, recharge, fill my soul with as much life-giving adventure as I can cram into the three or four weeks that we are there. I had been feeling the draw towards something deeper in my life’s work so I committed to use this time away to pray and diligently seek God about what this should be and what it should look like.
 
At the beginning of every New Year, I ask God for a "word" for the year and I use that to set goals and make life decisions. In 2015 I got two words. He told me REFINE your vision and DEFINE your goals. Do less. Less of the fruitful and more of the most fruitful. So that is exactly what I did. I simplified my life to the extreme down to the bare essentials, family, art and exercise. If it didn’t fit directly into one of those three categories then I didn’t do it. By doing this, I got exactly where I was trying to go. I got into high end galleries all around the country, I exceeded my sales goals, I was working and succeeding, I had time for my family and exercise and I was happy!
 
After settling into this new routine and enjoying the fruits of my labor for about a year I started to feel a tug towards something bigger and deeper. I didn’t know exactly what. I was pregnant and didn’t know it. The feeling was one of having tasted of success and now knowing that I had to start shifting my focus from inward to outward. I started asking God to show me where to go and how to give.
 
As mentioned before, I decided that my annual trip to Montana would be my time of intense seeking and I planned on coming away with some answers! One of my first days there, I open the book I was reading, “Chase the Lion” and read this:
 
“Right now, so many are pregnant with God’s purposes and don’t even know it. The Western world is presently experiencing a divine frustration that is parabolicly like a woman in her last month waiting to give birth. We need to remember that God is so faithful to deliver the fruit of our womb.
 
God will birth everything He has conceived in our spiritual being. He is faithful.”
 
Finally I began to put the pieces together and realized I am pregnant with a dream, Atlas & Arrow!
 

Over the next couple of weeks there in Montana, I continued to pray and seek and try to figure out what this was exactly and what it was supposed to look like. I got NO answers what-so-ever. The only thing I heard clearly was to have a year of extravagant giving. Ok, I agreed. At once, after the agreement was made, and I kid you not, Clay hit a deer in his car ($500), our dryer went out ($650), our septic system needed work ($1000), my air conditioner in my studio quit working ($500) and on and on… you get the point. This was a pretty good indicator that I was on the right track and did not back down!
 
I began giving to all the people that I knew were out there doing the work; to the people who had a plan and just needed the resources to make those things happen. I was giving to people who were focusing on orphans and widows because that was the one thing that I felt very strongly about. I found a ministry out of California that was building schools in the Congo and started supporting them with a portion of my art sales.

And then... I went to a conference at Bethel where I met Pastor Grace from Uganda. Little did I know my whole world would soon change by knowing this man…