Welcome to My Road

Good morning,

My name is Deborah Dawn Martin, but my friends call me Dawn.  I'm the wife of an airline pilot, the mom of three grown adults, and the grandmother to three grand littles!  To many outside of my family, I am Pastor Dawn, there are many others who call me Mama Dawn.  But, I have learned in recent years that even though I answer to many titles, none are the essence of who I am.  In fact, I am still learning who I am!  I am almost 55 years old and I am still on my road to the real me!

This little blog will unpack my discovery process, and I hope it will inspire you on your journey to the real you!  I am a culmination of my past, my present, and the future that God has stored up in His heart for me! Through a lifetime of ministry I have learned a lot about people, but very little about me.

The early lessons I learned as a child in the church was to put on a Sunday face and never let them see the real messy you!  

The problem with that is that you never really get to know yourself. Eventually, when life presses in, you will crack wide open, and it will get messy!  That's what happened to me last year.  What I learned from my messy is a lot!  The most important thing that I learned is that it didn't surprise, disappoint, or disgust Jesus in any way.  He gets me!  He really gets me, and he thinks my ugly tears are beautiful.

One of my biggest lessons I’m learning is about my heart.  I have always wanted to be like David; not King David, but shepherd David. He was the one who was after God's own heart before anyone else knew him (1 Samuel 13:14). He was the youngest (like me). He found his heart for God in the wilderness with the sheep, with the bears, with the lions, but most importantly, all alone with himself. 

Being an extrovert, I have never been great at being alone. But this past year, God has stripped me and stripped me, to help me find my own heart. How can you have a heart for God if you don't know anything about your own heart?  I have spent so much of my life helping others discover what was in their hearts, that I missed out on discovering what was in my heart! 

God doesn't just want me to love Him, (which I do and have for as long as I can remember), He wants passion!  Passion comes from a heart that is fully alive!  It comes for a heart that is real and raw and messy, like David's was.  His passion flowed out in worship, in war, in dreaming, in building, in relationship, in messy, messed-up life decisions, but it was always filled with real, raw passion!  His love for God was courageous!  The thing about courage is that it is only evident in the presence of fear. Courage is the ability to choose to do something that is frightening.

There is a lot that frightens me!  Failing, not having real friends, being alone, letting God down, not being a good mother, not having purpose, the list goes on and on.  But courage, real courage, is showing up and being real!

What dream in your heart scares you the most?  What step can you take this week to move towards that dream?

Welcome to my road to real!
—Dawn Martin

What is real?

I think it's important for me to define what I mean by "real".  My definition of real comes from the book, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.  This is the part of the story where Rabbit learns the meaning of real from the Skin Horse.

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” (excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams)

In 2012, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  As my hair started to fall out, I thought of the Velveteen Rabbit and the Skin Horse.  It was encouraging, because I was becoming "real"!  I'm not quite to the place where I don't mind being hurt.  But, during that season I felt the love of so many around me, and it gave me courage to continue on!  I spent a lot of time thinking about those who never become real, because they break easily, have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept.  I have fallen into each of those categories over the years, yet the words of the Skin Horse echo through my spirit.  Jesus is my personal skinned horse and He is constantly drawing me closer to real.  He is the voice of wisdom, my counselor, my friend, and my coach!  He has encouraged me to find coaches along the way and they have helped me to make hard decisions, good decisions, scary decisions!  I am grateful for the coaches that helped me to become a better version of real; I am more real today than I was yesterday!

On my road to real, I have felt the honor of being called to coach others on their road to real. It is my quest, my passion, and my honor to coach others on their road to finding their destiny!  If you are looking for a coach on your journey, email me at deborahdawn@roadtoreal.com.

On the road to real,

Deborah Dawn Martin