Dream of The West

Our Colorado view
Our Florida View

Websters dictionary defines "dreams" as a "vision of the fancy" or "something delightful". And of course there is the definition of "images or ideas occurring in the mind during sleep". I have been thinking alot about dreams recently. Not the kind that one has while sleeping but those visions that I believe give us hope, direction and the energy to withstand those tests of time. I firmly believe that the Lord speaks into our lives dreams. Dreams that help steer us in the direction that He would have us go....a picture so to speak of what could be waiting at the end of the road if we will just be faithful and follow Him. There is much testimony in God's Word to the fact that God loves to impart visions or "dreams" to his people. The Old Testament is chocked full of stories of dreams fulfilled providing us with a great hope that God can and will make our dreams come true and we don't have to go to Walt Disney World to experience it. God has fulfilled many of my dreams throughout life...marrying a wonderful man who loves the Lord, giving me 4 beautiful children just to name a few. Well, God has once again moved in the heart of our family giving us a vision and bringing about the fulfillment of that dream in a way that we could have never imagined. This dream began many years ago with a trip to Colorado. We traveled out to the Rocky Mountains for a little bit of skiing and we fell in love. I feel a little bit like Sally in the Disney movie CARS when she tells Lightening McQueen about why she stayed in Radiator Springs and shows him that with which she fell in love. It wasn't a cute little sports car but the majesty of the beautiful landscape and the people who loved her. Like Sally our souls were capture by the breathtaking mountains, our spirits encouraged by the friendly people. We became addicted to worship services at a local church that left us speechless and hungry for more and the laid back lifestyle of western living was always soothing to our weary bodies and minds. Each year we would make our trips westward sometimes just for a couple of days just to get our "Colorado fix" and each time we would return refreshed and wishing for more time in our new favorite place. We would digest each trip with thoughtful dreaming as well as prayer about what God was doing in our hearts. Was this just a beautiful place of respite that the Lord had given us or was it more? As we sought the Lord's guidance and direction we felt that "there was more" but what did that "more" look like? Well, we began exploring and for years we felt a little like Abraham wandering in the desert although unlike Abraham we had tasted our "Promise Land." We literally spent years on the Internet looking at homes, exploring job opportunities, checking out schools and with each venture it seemed as though God wasn't ready to fully open the door. HE never closed the door, just cracked it. So we waited and thankfully, Mike is such a visionary. Throughout all of these years he never lost sight of this dream even though I vacillated back and forth...he remained constant and God stayed faithful. HE always gave us morsels of manna that let us know that HE was still working and HIS work came to fruition during the past 10 months. It began with Mike's decision to sell his law practice and retire, the second piece of the puzzle came in God's directing us to home school the children and finally after years of searching for the perfect Colorado house....we found it! And as Emeril says...BAM!!!! So you say...what does all of this mean for The Minot's, well for right now it means that we have the awesome opportunity to have dual residences. 6 months of the year we will soak in the beauty of Florida and the remaining 6 months will be spent absorbing ALL that the Lord has for us in Colorado and as long as we are successful in our homeschooling endeavors and the kids are thriving this arrangement has the possibility of being a permanent lifestyle. We have a few details to iron out...one being Cody's medical care and how to manage his treatment long distance and of course we are currently attempting to sort through what stays in Florida and what makes the trip west but with all the decisions and uncertainties about what lies ahead we are more than excited. We are blessed with two beautiful places to live and have the opportunity to provide our children with the best of both worlds. We are looking forward to growing friendships and connections in CO, seeing our kids enjoy living in a house with a yard a neighborhood, snuggling by a fire on a cold night, experiencing all of the outdoor activities of a cooler and less humid environment and absorbing the richness of a community of Believers. And so God has finally fulfilled our dream. Will it be a "vision of the fancy" or "something delightful"....we certainly believe it will be that and so much more. We will spend the month of July ironing out all the details and then head west at the end of the month. We will begin The Minot's Great Adventure with a scenic road trip taking in some of the sites along Route 66 and ending in our little patch of heaven in Colorado and remaining there until the first of January. I will send out an email with our new address and phone number when we arrive in CO. Stay tuned for updates and of course lots of pics of our Great Adventure. As I have saturated myself recently with the music of Steven Curtis Chapman I found an oldie but goody that will be our theme song and it goes like this:

Started out this morning in the usual way
Chasing thoughts inside my head of all I had to do today
Another time around the circle try to make it better than the last
I opened up the Bible and I read about me
Said I'd been a prisoner and God's grace had set me free
And somewhere between the pages it hit me like a lightning bolt
I saw a big frontier in front of me and I heard somebody say "let's go"!

Saddle up your horses we've got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace
Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown
This is a life like no other - this is The Great Adventure
Come on get ready for the ride of your life
Gonna leave long faced religion in a cloud of dust behind
And discover all the new horizons just waiting to be explored
This is what we were created for


We'll travel over, over mountains so high
We'll go through valleys below
Still through it all we'll find that
This is the greatest journey that the human heart will ever see
The love of God will take us far beyond our wildest dreams
Yeah... oh saddle up your horses... come on get ready to ride

The Great Adventure by Steven Curtis Chapman



We've saddled up our horses and are ready to ride!!!!!!