Dreamcatchers

By Jamie A. Somohano

We are all created to be a solution in some way or another. Dreamcatchers provides a practical approach to finding and understanding your life's purpose. We all have one. In this book, I challenge you to consider the legacy you can leave behind as I provide ways to understand your purpose. You'll come away from this book with a better u

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Jun 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685563295

Jamie A. Somohano

Jamie A. Somohano has bridged her experience in the corporate setting, serving a decade in the financial services industry with her passion for helping young people. She gleans most of her understanding of the needs of the next generation by interacting with them weekly as a digital outreach volunteer with Focus on the Family. This experience has prompted her desire to create a soon-to-be-launched medium providing a platform for the next generation to be seen and heard in much deeper and more profound ways: seeking to celebrate their gifts and talents that enable them to help others as well as providing sound wisdom on topics of interest to them. For nearly two years, Jamie has hosted Thoughts for Today, a widely distributed podcast launched during the pandemic that aims at providing positive and uplifting stories, sound advice, and an encouraging word for young people struggling through thoughts of anxiety, depression, and even suicide.

Book preview

Dedication

This book is written for dreamers!

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.

Acts 2:17 (NKJV)

Old men here are considered anyone who thought their aspirations were too far behind them to grab hold of. I’m challenging you, old man, whether you’re fifteen or fifty-one, male or female, to consider God’s plan for your life and run after it.

Prologue

The purpose of this book is for you to grab hold of your dreams and not let them go! God has a unique and fulfilling plan and purpose for your life. He says so himself (Jeremiah 29:11), but we often find it hard to hear His voice. With the pressure to perform and deadlines all around us, those seeds of purpose may never plant themselves, let alone produce fruit!

Don’t lose hope. It’s important to note that many of your innate gifts and talents, the ones He gave you when He crafted you in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), are tied to the purpose for which God created you. We’ll explore those gifts together and how to access His will for your life in a practical way.

With a heart to impact the next generation, this book aims to allow all people, especially those finding their way, to explore their passions and dream again. By dispelling societal norms, I want to inspire the next generation to wait on the Lord and listen for His wise counsel and directives on the purposes and plans He has in store for them.

What Do You Do?

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Colossians 3:23–24

What do you do? is a commonly asked question today, and perhaps the response to that question is even more sought after than How do you do? It is as though your response to what do you do exposes the value you hold in society. The very nature of your existence is somehow tied to what you do. Once in the real world, this question can become even more daunting as you may find yourself competing with your peers and others over who does the most! Who has the better job, car, lifestyle, job title, etc.? As you’ll read in Lilacs Bloom in Summer, the book that precedes this one, this very simple question in its nature, became a daunting reminder of what I somehow lacked. In short, I was unemployed from the fall of 2018 to the beginning of 2020, just about one and a half years. At first, I enjoyed the time off and my retirement or sabbatical from what was a very strenuous career at that time, but all good things must come to an end. I then became quite obsessed with finding another job, as working became my purpose and reason for living, and of course, I needed to make a living!

I applied to jobs almost blindly. No curated target, but just hoping for some option to stick. I had never encountered such difficulty finding work prior. I changed jobs so often because there were so many options for me with better titles, locations, pay, etc. I worked with ABC Television, Bloomberg L.P., Forbes Magazine, Parisian bank BNP Paribas, and a large well-known hedge fund. I thought the search would have been quite simple. However, it was anything but simple. Months and months passed with few interviews and even fewer callbacks. I began to think that it was me. I was the problem! As you’ll read in more detail throughout Lilacs Bloom in Summer, God was up to something.

I decided to quit searching and get to know more about this purpose and plan God says He has for me and if it would prove beneficial. During this time, I had become so desperate and so overcome with anxiety about all of the bills to be paid, rent that was due, and dwindling savings that I was desperate to take just about anything. I realized, too, that in my career, I had made myself available to many different options as well, ranging from accounting and finance to support roles and administration to corporate communications and media relations! My career became such a hodgepodge of opportunities and experiences that I soon realized I didn’t specialize in anything in particular. Sure, I managed to successfully complete those tasks and even excelled in those roles, but clearly, I wasn’t enjoying all of the work I was doing. Otherwise, something would have stuck. Perhaps then, I wouldn’t have jumped around so much! But God works all things out. Those experiences and exposures I received to different tasks would help me in the vision He’s given me. More about that later.

As I found lots of time on my hands, I realized that I was created very specifically. There were things I did well, things I enjoyed and things I didn’t enjoy. There were causes and issues I was passionate about, and areas in which I wanted to grow. So I used the time off to create lists of answers to those prompts, and I eventually found a pattern. I began to see that many of my innate gifts were not being used as effectively in the roles I worked in and the titles I held. Sure, it was nice to have them and receive an income, but at what cost? My peace of mind was eventually disrupted. In the last couple of roles, in particular, I began to experience panic attacks and anxiety and was overstressed. This would eventually impact my health and well-being to the point that I realized nothing was worth stealing the joy, peace, and abundant life that Jesus had died to give me. That’s when I realized it was time to leave it all, but it was hard in the natural. I felt completely uneasy at the thought of not knowing where my next check would come from, but I took the leap of faith that brought me to this very moment. After some time, I will say that the constant questions of What do you do? upon meeting someone and concerns about how I was affording my lifestyle from those I did know were beginning to wear on me.

Now imagine you’re being asked What do you do? and deciding to answer nothing in response.

Person: Hi there, nice to meet you. What do you do?

Me: Hi. I do nothing, err, I don’t uh, do…

It’s an awkward response, and so we feel pressure every day from the moment we are born to fill our lives with worthwhile things for us to do! As newborns and babies, we are so quickly engulfed in the world of achievement: first how much we weigh and our height/length, compared to others, then how quickly we speak, then how soon we walk and are potty trained, and the list truly never ends. We are born and bred into a competition to see how we can escalate all of those milestones in fewer months than our contemporaries! How important are all of these accolades really in the bigger scheme of life? Solomon, the wisest of all kings, wrote the book of Ecclesiastes and talked a lot about the meaning of