Dreams are a funny thing. At church this week we have bee talking about God invading our dreams. I thought I would share how God has effected me through my shattered dreams.

Ever since I was little I dreamed of being a DJ. I memorized station ID's (one of my favorites is from WIXX, "Broadcasting from Title Town USA, today's best music WIXX"), legal ID's ("WIXX DePere, Green Bay, Fox Cities. A Service of Midwest Communications") , and how DJ's would segue between songs. At the time I thought that this was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. God had a different plan.

I was failing out of High School. I went the the Mahtomedi Alternative Learning Program (ALP). At the ALP I was able to complete the work I had been failing for the last 2 years in one hard year. I then had the opportunity to go to College on the states dime. I jumped at the chance to go into the Radio Broadcasting program at Riverland Community and Technical College (RCTC) in Austin, MN. I got down to college and loved my radio classes. I got a job working at KWEB as a board operator in Rochester ($5.25 an hour). I was also working at KAAL as a TV Production Assistant ($5.00 per hour) .

I was in Austin for a few weeks and I thought I should go looking for a church. I found New Life Christian Vineyard Fellowship (NLV). I was freaked out the first Sunday there. It was very charismatic and I was very not. I did go back for some reason though after a couple weeks and started going to youth group. I was 17 at the time so I barely made the cut off. I started hanging out at events and things like that. One of the people there, Rachel Lunde (now Strouf), was working at the Austin Auto Truck and Travel Plaza(AATTP). I was getting a little low on cash so one day when a few of us went there after youth group I applied to work there also. I got hired as a weekend overnight manager ($9.50 an hour).

I had really come to love the people at church, but I felt less like doing Radio as a career. I gave up the dream one night while I was working at AATTP. I just had received my paychecks from my jobs ( I worked all 3 somedays) and the AATTP paycheck was a lot bigger than the other 2. I started to take a look at my future job options in radio, and I was not liking any of them. I would be working at KHIC in Tumbleweed Nebraska for my first few years, and that did not excite me. I decided that I would drop out of college and head back home. I quit my jobs and was done with Austin. So I thought.

Fast forward a few years and I went back to Austin to check out the Extreme Youth Center at NLV. I loved it. I went to church there again and I loved it. I started driving down to Austin every weekend to do church. I then started to run the Extreme youth center at the church with my now wife, Sara.

The whole point of my dream was not for my radio career. It was so I could get to where I needed to be for God's plan to work. I would not be at Journey right now if I hadn't tried radio. I would not be with my wife, if I hadn't tried radio. My life would be in a whole different place without my shattered dream.