What remains....

On our back porch is some lumber. Lumber that used to have a purpose. We were going to do this or that with it. Build something amazing with it. It sits there. Through the snow, wind, rain, hail. Taking abuse. And now just seems useless and a waste of space. I have black trash bags that I had threatened to put it in and take it off to the dump. Wasted potential to be something. Wasted space. And now just looks trashy.

That's what happens when we don't pursue something. Something like a dream. Justin and I had a dream once. A dream to have a youth center that was centered around different styles of music. We had named it. Had a vision for it. Wrote up a proposal for it. Looked at buildings. Contacted local bands. Searched sound ordinances. Looked into having it as a community service location. I mean we did months of research. We presented it to our covering. We were shut down. We walked out of the meeting hurt, confused, and broken. We put the dream away and that's where it has been for about 4 years.

My next "20 things I wished I knew in my twenties' is, 

A Dream Will Remain a Dream Unless You Pursue It. 

After that meeting, I remained angry for many many months. I took a break from ministry and visited a friends church. She had a guest speaker there that week who stopped mid conversation and looked right at me. He said, "You've been given something that God wants you to do, why aren't you doing it?" I couldn't answer. I brushed it off and ignored the warning. About 5 months following my warning, another group in the area took my dream and made it a reality. I was crushed. I was mad at God, I was mad at the church, I was confused, and I was hurt. The dream died. And that's where it stayed. My husband and I haven't talked about Sip² since.

Recently, we have been talking with our Pastor and the conversation came up again. After 4 years of suffocating our passion and our heart, it came up. Justin and I haven't spoken about it since the day we walked out of the church office. Now we might have an opportunity to do something similar. It's been a dead dream for years.

What I want you to walk away with is that you can do anything you want. Any dream you want to. But if you don't pursue it, it will remain a dream. Dreams become reality when you PURSUE THEM! So, attack today with a desire to pursue your dreams. Your failures are only as big as the limitations that you put on yourself.