where we are going..

"There is an anatomy for life... Words and images determine the way you think. The way you think will determine how you feel. How you feel will determine your actions. Your actions determines your habits. Habits determine your character. Then your character determines your destination in life." 
-Creflo Dollar


I am not a huge fan of the prosperity gospel. However, I do enjoy a little Creflo Dollar once in awhile. I caught an interview with him a few days ago and jotted the quote above down in my journal. I liked it. It made sense to me, and I can see the truth of it playing out in my life and in my families life during this season. I can also see how the truth of it has played out in my past as well.

The other morning George and I were sitting on the sofa talking about money. An area in our lives that we are "growing up" in right now, among other things. I stated that, "I can't help how I have choose to spend money in the past, but I can help how I spend it today and for the rest of my life." He responded with, "That's interesting, I woke up this morning being plagued by the past, and I realized I have not been able to get a vision of the future because I've been held down by the past."

It has been so long since we have dreamed together. I don't even remember the last time I imagined our future and what it would look like. Much of our marriage has been in survival mode. Trying to beat the odds. Fighting one battle after another. Playing characters God never intended for us to play. And frankly we have wasted a whole lot of time. BUT... We can do nothing about where we have been..however, where we are going, is a whole different story.

Several weeks ago one of George's friends called him up and said he was needing to sale his house and that he really wanted us to take a look at it. I have been praying for weeks that God would move our family to a new place. Give us a fresh start. Free us from the surroundings of our past. Give us a dream, a vision, a hope. I knew right away that we had to go see Dave's house. I didn't have extremely high hopes for it, but none-the-less, it is in an area that would be completely fresh and brand new for our family. It is close to the mountains we love to frolic in, and not far from George's work. So on a Saturday afternoon our family drove 40 mins away to see a possibility.

Immediately it felt right to all of us..

It seemed as if we were being invited to enter into a new life together. A life that is refreshing and cleansing.

"I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs." Isaiah 41:18
 
How encouraging this is to me. It seems we have spent a lifetime in the desert. The image of a refreshing pool causes me to take a very deep breath..

Dave showed us the garden.. I like the idea of having a garden. I like the idea of being fruitful. The image of this home producing fruit stirred in me. Dave stood by this garden and explained to us that he dug three feet down and removed all the bad soil, then he replaced it with fresh compost and good soil. I smiled to myself and thought, it seems that's what my life looks like right now. A digging up, a digging deep, a removing of the bad soil, a preparation for the replacement of good soil and planting..

"Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop - a hundred , sixty, or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears let him hear." Matthew 13:3

The image of fruitfulness, the words of digging deep, has been what I am thinking on. It has been producing a crop of new actions, and I am getting the slightest glimpse of new habits forming..

We walked along paths of strawberry plants and blackberry bushes. The kids ran around in a yard perfect for a dog (maybe two) and their excitement was almost tangible. We picked peaches from the peach tree in the front yard and enjoyed their sweetness. I imagined the joys of decorating and fixing up a 1960s brick ranch and making it home. A fruitful home.

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22

So we have a vision. A dream. Although we have some steps to take to get there, and I hope God allows us to find ourselves at the destination of this sweet home, more than that it is what this place represents for us. 

It has been an image and words that have gave us new thoughts. Our thoughts are giving us feelings of hope, encouragement, motivation, desire. These feelings are causing us to act more careful, more faithful, pursuing goals we have long thought were unreachable. These new actions are developing into habits that are forming the characters God DID intend for us to be. And that my friends is going to take us to a new destination. 

Where are we going?
We are going to produce fruit...

kristin