It’s hard to imagine that at 74 years of age, there is still a dream that lives as vibrantly in my heart today as it did when I was very young. But the dream does live – and it lives by the strength and the inspiration of God because He is the One who put it there!

The vision hasn’t changed to build a retreat center… to build a place for God’s people that is like a City of Refuge. I have people who say, “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing the same thing again?” The answer is very simple: I only have one string on my fiddle. I mean I’m a one-string fiddle and I don’t have another one. I’m doing what is in me and for the first time I understand it. I can’t change it because it was established in me by God!

Pastor Tommy Reid was with us recently and he is a great encourager to me and a wonderful friend. Although I’ve known Pastor Reid since we were very young, just beginning in ministry, he has had a special place in my life throughout our years, which are now very mature. There’s something very endearing about someone who was there and knew you in the beginning. Someone who sees your heart, understands your dreams, and knows what drives you without having to constantly explain or justify your motivation for the things you do. It’s a comfort and a security that I can’t really explain – except to say that I have nothing to prove and nothing to hide with Tommy. He’s my friend, and that is all.

When Tommy is around, I feel safe – knowing that he will always have my best interests in mind with every thought he thinks about me, which is good continually. I can open up and be vulnerable because I know that even if I make a mistake, Tommy has my back. He encourages me to keep dreaming, even when there are so many voices, in so many forms, saying that I should pack it in. He believes in the dream, because he has God’s heart for me.

Let me tell you, if you listen to any other voice than that of your God, the Dream Giver, you will pack it in. You will quit on life before your time is up and circumvent the purposes of God! God does not give us dreams and then take them back! A dream is given for LIFE. A dream is given even for eternity, past and present, because dreams are before the foundation of the world.

Tommy said, “Understand when you were born, there was inside of you a dream, vision, purpose, that was written by God before the foundation of the world. Let me give you a scripture: ‘For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.’  (Hebrews 4:3 KJV)

I believe God designed us as a person – as a human being – with a dream in our heart about our destiny. God put destiny in our heart and we’re to live out of that destiny; we begin to see it; we begin to visualize it.”