Dare to Dream

I just finished the LAST day of clinical internships, the last day of being a PT student in the clinic, the last day of working for free...after over 40 weeks of it I'm ready to be done! I am very excited, however, it was sad to leave the clinic today for numerous reasons. First of all, I was leaving my dream PT position because I loved the clinic that I was at. Second, I was leaving the state that I had fallen in love with. Third, I was leaving my friends and family that I had gotten close with over the last 2 months. Fourth, I was leaving my patients that I had become rather attached to. (Couple quick patient stories: one patient started balling when I told her I was leaving and she gave me a long extended wet hug with all her tears falling on me and she didn't let go of me for over 3 minutes...LONGEST, MOST AWKWARD HUG EVER! Another elderly woman asked me where the ballot was that she could fill out to request that I stay longer at the clinic. Funniest part was that she was DROP DEAD SERIOUS! Several of my other patients asked if they had to keep coming to PT because they said "I feel like I'm doing a little better already and it just won't be the same at all without you".)
All of my patients asked me the same question of "What's next?" and my typical answer was "Well I'm going to Iowa to graduate and celebrate Christmas with my family and study for my boards exam and then I'll go to Kenya to work as a PT for a month. After that I hope to move back to Colorado to get a PT job."
All of the above is truth but tonight I'm focusing on the last sentence. I want to move out to Colorado. I want to get a job there. But here's the problem...I don't have a job yet and there don't seem to be  many jobs available. It was so sad to say bye to the mountains today knowing that I might never live in Colorado again.
The one factor that keeps me at peace is knowing that I did everything I possibly could in order to get a job there. I was fortunate enough to work four-12 hour days so I had one week day off to network with PTs each week. Every week day off I would drive around to 1-3 clinics throughout an 1.5 hr radius and "job shadow" with the end goal being trying to meet as many PTs as possible and make a good impression so they could put a face to my resume. It is crazy the doors that God opened to me in Colorado. The amount of people that I met that introduced me to PTs or physicians in the Denver/Boulder/Fort Collins area was incredible. I literally could tell over 15 stories about how I got in contact with different clinics and met various PTs. The cool thing is that I got to visit almost all 15 of those clinics. I have NO IDEA if any jobs will come from those visits but I have complete confidence that I was supposed to spend all of that time commuting and job shadowing because God wanted me at all those clinics. All of the PT clinics said the same thing of "We are impressed by your resume. We don't have any positions open but we will let you know if any open up. You are definitely a great new grad applicant but we don't ever hire new grads."
At one of the clinics I visited they told me that they had received over 500 resumes for one PT position in Colorado. It reminds me kinda of PT school where there's a ridiculous amount of applicants but very few spots, however, it's even worse this time around because everyone is a licensed PT, most of them having way more years of experience than me. I know that I would have a lot better odds at getting a job anywhere else in the country, but here's the thing, that's not my dream right now. My dream is ADVENTURE. It's MOUNTAINS. It's COLORADO.
One of the many reasons being in Denver the last two months was awesome was because I got to hangout with my awesome cousin Amanda who is full of wisdom. We had several good conversations about what it looks like to dream with God. It got me starting to ask questions like "What's the difference between our dreams and what God's dreams are for us? Does God plant dreams in our hearts? What does it look like to dream with God?"
I don't know the answers to all those questions yet but I do know that God made us dreamers for a reason. God has given us dreams, some of them unfold and some of them don't. And just because some of them don't unfold doesn't mean that we shouldn't dream.
Right now my dream is getting a job in Colorado. I want to live there for a couple years and embrace every possible outdoor adventure there is the mountains. I want to climb the 14ers, mountain bike the Boulder trails, ski in every mountain town, white water raft down the rivers...etc. When I dream, I dream of working and living in Colorado. But with this dream I have to trust that if God wants it to happen then it will and if it doesn't then I have to have faith that he was way better dreams for me.
So what does it mean to dream with God? I think it means dreaming BIG.
What does it look like to dream with God? I think it means daring to write down your dreams. If you write them out it means they're real and they exist. If you write them out you're looking at them square in the face and admitting that you can't deny them anymore. I think it's good to write out both short and long-term dreams. For some those dreams might be to get a job in a certain location like it is for me. For others it might be to get married and have a family. I know that's mine eventually but in the short term it is to have ADVENTURE. And right now adventure looks like Colorado.
I'm dreaming BIG tonight. And I will continue to even if the chances look extremely slim that my dream will unfold. I'm going to strive for the impossible of getting a job in Colorado. If I fail then it's okay because it means God's got better dreams for me and I'm excited to see what those will be.

Go DREAM BIG tonight. I dare you.

Psalm 37:4         
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.