Your Dream. God's Plan. Free Extended Preview: Are You Longing for Something More?

By Tiffany Smiling and Margot Starbuck

FREE EXTENDED PREVIEW!
Satisfaction can be yours, but it might look different than you thought.

Like a lot of young women, Tiffany Smiling had been assured that the path to fulfillment looked like the one she’d seen in her favorite movies: She’d be swept away by a soul mate, live in a southern estate, and start a family.

But Tiffany’s story unfolded quite differently.
 
Weeks after serving on her high school’s homecoming court, while doctors operated to remove the brain tumor that was killing her, Tiffany suffered a paralyzing stroke. In the nick of a scalpel she lost her beauty and most of her physical ability. Returning to high school in a wheelchair, head half-shaved and face distorted, Tiffany vowed to be normal and live the dream.
 
And for a season, she did.
 
But just when the fairytale was within reach, God surprised Tiffany. Wooing her heart, God convinced her that there was something even better in store for her.
 
. . .And He has something better in store for you, too.

Read Your Dream. God's Plan. and see how the Lord wants to use the broken pieces of your life for His greater plan for you.
Smiling's story will help you see the ways God is writing your own amazing story—designed for His glory and your fulfillment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbour Publishing
• Release date: Oct 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781944836368

Tiffany Smiling

Though she was given just three months to live as a child, today Tiffany Smiling—writer, speaker and entrepreneur—is changing the kingdom of God around the globe. She’s a cancer survivor, an injustice fighter and, above all else, she is passionate about knowing Christ and making him known.   Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tiffany attended Oklahoma State University. During the summer before her senior year, she opened her own Orange Leaf Yogurt franchise and subsequently opened one other local business. Today Tiffany is utilizing her entrepreneurial skills to grow the kingdom of God through orphan care.   As a co-founder of Project Orphans, twenty-seven-year-old Tiffany has opened orphan homes in Uganda, Guatemala, Brazil and Haiti.   Convinced that when Christians truly know Christ they will go and make Him known, Tiffany has recently founded With All My Heart, an organization to equip this generation to know Christ deeply through the study of His word and, as a result, to respond to God’s call to serve the world. The With All My Heart Foundation, currently building the Children’s Village for Orphans in Haiti, serves children and others living in poverty around the world.   Tiffany Smiling is calling her generation to partner with God in redeeming the world He loves.  

Book preview

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INTRODUCTION

Something Better Than Your Dreams

What girl doesn’t want to live the story she’s seen in the movies? Who doesn’t want to be pursued by a soul mate and live happily ever after?

From the outside, my teenage life didn’t look so very different from the glamorous lives of the leading ladies in the movies I’d seen. On my sixteenth birthday I looked out the window of our high-end home to see a brand-new-new black SUV in the driveway. My mom took care of my sister, my brother, and me; and my dad was a successful attorney. Our family vacationed at exclusive resorts in Maui and the Bahamas. At a glance, I was living the fairy tale.

But that picture didn’t tell the whole story.

When I was ten years old, I was given a death sentence: three months to live. By God’s grace I made it to sixteen when I literally exchanged an elegant ball gown for a worn cotton hospital gown, and a sparkling tiara for an MRI coil encircling my head. I was desperate to live a normal life, and with the help of my family and God, I fought my way back to normal, determined to live the dream on my heart.

But that didn’t happen.

At the moment the good life was just within reach, I discovered that lasting satisfaction wasn’t found where I thought it might be. In fact, as God revealed to me that scrambling after the dream I’d bought into would never satisfy, I tasted something even more fulfilling.

Hear me: I’m not knocking getting married, having a family, succeeding professionally, or even owning nice things. Rather, I’m observing that pouring our lives into the pursuit of our own happiness has not served us well.

Daily, we spend hours browsing others’ happenings on social media. We work long hours to secure the next promotion or to pay for the clothes and car and house we believe will make us happy. We go to clubs with friends in the hope of real connection. But in our honest moments we realize that the happiness we’ve had has been fleeting.

Doing what advertisers and retailers and the media have conditioned us to do, scrambling to secure our own comfort and happiness, hasn’t yet satisfied.

I’m sharing my story, of exchanging my dream for God’s plan, with the hope that your eyes will be opened to the ways God is writing your own. Since the season I traded in my dream for God’s plan, my life hasn’t been the same. I’ve dashed with friends through a Guatemalan jungle to get a dying baby to a hospital. I’ve seen Ugandan orphans find family, food, and education. I’ve witnessed an entire Haitian village saved when they heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time. I’ve tasted life that leads to fulfillment and I want nothing more than for you to experience it too, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. Trading in temporary for eternal, He is ready to raise up a generation who dares to believe that He will use them to change the world.

Beloved friends, Paul’s words to first-century believers facing desperate times have never rung truer than they do today:

Don’t waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are. It’s a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see. Rip the cover off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ.

Wake up from your sleep,

Climb out of your coffins;

Christ will show you the light!

So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times! (Ephesians 5:11–16 MSG)

As you release the barren pursuit of earthly pleasures, exchanging it for the surprising way of Jesus, you will experience lasting satisfaction as you embrace what matters most.

—Tiffany Smiling

CHAPTER 1

THE DAY EVERYTHING CHANGES

Because our time on this earth is fleeting, every moment matters.

So how was it? Jordan gushed as she got into my car, dropping her purse and bag in the backseat beside mine. Your tan looks fabulous!

Though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t brag about the cruise, I couldn’t keep a broad grin from exploding across my face.

I admitted, It was awesome. Perfect weather most days and delicious food.

Did you and Gentry find dresses today? Jordan asked. She knew my sister and I had both been nominated for homecoming court and had looked for dresses in downtown Tulsa.

We saw a few things we liked but didn’t buy anything, I said. We might try again this week. And if we have to go to Dallas next weekend, we can.

Jordan and I pulled into the restaurant parking lot to meet some of our guy friends right at six o’clock.

As I got out of the car, something felt off with my body. I couldn’t quite place it, but I knew something wasn’t right. It felt sort of like a pulse of energy, like before a sneeze, but it didn’t itch and it didn’t hurt. It just felt weird.

We walked thirty feet to the door, and as we entered we saw the guys in line. They were next up to order. Waving us over, they suggested we jump in and order ahead of