The young mother became hysterical when she found her five-year-old collapsed in the back yard of their rural Wisconsin home. Her husband quickly mounted his horse and summoned the doctor. However, medical knowledge in 1865 was limited, and by day’s end the doctor pronounced little Max Hoffman dead. With the neighbors’ help, the grieving couple buried their only child that same summer evening.
Late in the night, Mrs. Hoffman awakened her husband and frantically explained her recurring nightmares. “Max is still alive,” she said. He tried to pray with her, but she would not be comforted. At her insistence, he put aside his own grief and asked the neighbors to help open the grave.[1] By lantern light, they unearthed the wooden casket and removed the lid. Max had moved. The doctor came, and after much effort, revived the child. A week later, Max was playing in the backyard once again.
Max lived 80 more years, and spent his last days in Clinton, Ohio where he’d sit on the town park bench, show the little coffin handles, and explain how he’d once died, but because of his mother’s dream, he received a second chance.
God often gives each of us a dream before He provides the real thing. It’s up to us to nurture that dream and keep it alive. Negativism and disbelief from others may bury your dream, but do whatever it takes to resurrect it. Use your shovel of prayer and faith to scrape off negativism from your lost hope.
Make no mistake; doubt kills more dreams than failure. Don’t let someone else to live your dream, and refuse to allow naysayers, who gave up on their dream, talk you out of yours. Keeping your dream alive may seem difficult, but all things are possible with God. Focus on him with hope in your heart as you cling to that dream with all the passion you can muster. Keep your dream bigger than your fear and your faith stronger than your discouragement. Hold on to your dream and leave the rest up to God.
… regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. Hab 1:5
[1] Incredible Facts by Richard B. Mancester 1985 Hart Associates published in 1986 by Galahad books
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