I’ve realized there’s something within me that causes me to lean into yesterday’s dreams, when I was a child.

Whether it’s a house that seems to help paint the picture in my mind of what the perfect family looked like – a safe home, family fully intact, with a basketball goal in the driveway, a happy pet, and cozy furnishings – it’s an image as a child I held deep within their heart. A longing for what was lacking.

This same child would gaze out the window and watch such families laugh and play, as they loaded down their boat to go water ski for the day. This was like a fantasy to me – so foreign, yet so magical like a Disney movie. I longed for it, desired it, and even envied it at times.

To have such a home and family that played together and lived together buried itself deep in my heart and mind, and unknowingly it seemed to drive its way out into my everyday decisions.

For as I look around, I realize I reached for that same boat, that same home, and that same basketball goal in the driveway, in some subconscious way to capture that image of the “perfect” life I had only dreamed and hoped for so long ago.

Not that this is wrong – but could there be something more if I dare to see it?

God declares He is doing a new thing in our hearts, as we learn to walk with Him, and He gives us new dreams, and refines our desires to be same as His – ones that can only come from healing and faith.

He promises to make a pathway in the wilderness of our souls and refresh our spirits like a river through wastelands.

Truly, He is always up to something new – something good – something purposeful, and something better than we can ever imagine. Not materially, but spiritually and it manifests physically.

And He asks us if we can see it. To be alert and present – aware of His works all around.

But dare we let go of our childhood dreams and damage in order to move on into such new horizons of the unknown, growth, and healing?

Perhaps this means letting go of the things we thought represented home, success, and safety…and beginning to venture out into the new wilderness of tomorrow? To see what God has for us – that isn’t borrowed from someone else’s life, but is uniquely our own from Him and to steward.

This is part of growing up.

It can be scary, and uncertain at times, as we look back on our yesterdays with a spirit of learning and appreciation, but not to repair it, or imagine it to be something it wasn’t. Even if it was mostly good.

But to be fully present in today, knowing God blazes new trails into the uncertainty of tomorrow, and that we can go forth confidently knowing, our Father is good – and through Him we learn how to truly live, love, and walk freely – without tethers tying us to yesterday’s desires.

Rather, we venture out as faith fueled explorers, and adventurers as we learn to enjoy our God, play well, trust in Him completely, and grow in our love for Him at greater levels – as He reshapes our hearts and lives to be all they were meant to be through Christ and not merely the trinkets we thought represented the freedoms we so desired.

Where will this take us, and where will it lead? I don’t know fully, but I know it leads to my true self – the one God is revealing and healing day by day.

There is an invitation to let go of my yesterdays, in order to embrace today, and venture faithfully into tomorrow.

Where He leads, dare I follow?

I pray – let it be. And may I abound in my ability to love holy, live fully, laugh heartedly, and leave a legacy that is His way and not my own.

For that is the best way, the best life, and the best way to freedom. This I know.