GUEST BLOG: Dreaming With Patience and Trust

How easily we forget that there are no “nevers” with God —
absolutely anything and everything is possible.

I’ve experienced so many examples of this in my life. When my wife Laura and I were first married, we dreamed of a European honeymoon. Unfortunately, it was simply not possible on a junior engineer’s salary like mine. 

Maybe we were dreaming a little too big, and the realities of the more affordable honeymoon in Nova Scotia were still a nice escape and much easier on the budget. You can imagine our surprise when just six months into our marriage we were invited to move to Europe and found ourselves living just an hour from London.

It is moments like this when you realize anything is possible with God! 

Later in our marriage, we started to have a dream of farming; providing a local, healthy and sustainable source of food. We took the practical steps we knew we could accomplish. First my wife attended classes in Virginia held by Joel Salatin of Polyfacefarm and learned sustainable practices including care for the animals as well as care for the land. This was exciting as this model took land that seemed wasted and barren and each year improved its fertility. The animals were healthy, the produce was wholesome and the model was economically feasible.

We even found a beautiful spot in Vermont and thought this could be it!

Sadly, we could not make all the details work out. Disappointing reality set in quickly as doors just did not open.

Still, we remained hopeful. 

However, that hope eventually became discouragement. After all of our efforts and my wife’s schooling, we could not even free range 3 chickens on our quarter acre plot in downtown Dover as it greatly upset our newly moved in neighbors. At this same time, my work direction changed even more as I found myself commuting to downtown Boston by train. 

From my office on the 12th story, surrounded by skyscrapers, I reflected prayerfully to God on how this was a much different view than I had anticipated. I was thankful for the opportunity but also felt I needed to accept the new reality that maybe our dream to own a farm was never going to happen. 

But again, with God there are no “nevers.” What I didn’t know then was that God had an entirely different reality planned for us. 

How surprised we were again when the door suddenly opened to work and live out in the country, close to family in Vermont. We aren’t farming yet…but we are definitely exploring our options. We recently purchased a home with enough acreage to start small and test everything out. We made maple syrup and purchased pigs and chickens. We’ve even started working with UVM on some hop plants. 

We have learned firsthand that some dreams, it seems, require a bit more patience and trust — two things we are working hard on in this season of letting God guide where our dreams ultimately lead us. 

During the process of unpacking, in our new home, we came across a drawing that our son made in elementary school while we were living in the town of Dover.

We instantly thought “Wow! This is our home now!” For that, we are grateful and ground ourselves in the new reality that what is impossible for man, is not impossible for and with God.