Dreams.  They are what keep us going.  Motivate us to get up and try again.  Focus us in our youth when we have to decide what our path will be.

The Oscars always remind me of dreams coming true.  We hear so many stories of people waiting tables while waiting to make it.  The part they got that changed their lives.  The story they told that the world was waiting to hear.

Last night Jordan Peele won Best Screenplay for the movie Get Out.   The first African American to win in this category.

Jordan said, “I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible. I thought it wasn’t going to work. I thought it wasn’t going to work. I thought no-one would ever make this movie. But I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone let me make this movie that people would hear it and people would see it.”

He never gave up.

Keala Settle performed the Oscar-nominated song This Is Me from the movie The Greatest Showman.  She sang…

“I am not a stranger to the dark
Hide away, they say
‘Cause we don’t want your broken parts
I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars
Run away, they say
No one’ll love you as you are
But I won’t let them break me down to dust
I know that there’s a place for us
For we are glorious
When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me.”
Embrace who you are.  The broken parts too.  And dream on.  Because as character Auggie Pullman said in the book Wonder, “I think there should be a rule that everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their lives.”
The world is waiting to see what you’ll do next.