Giving Thanks for Goals & Dreams

Gracious God, thank you for goals and dreams—both old and new—and how they can change as we travel through life. Thanks for:

• Goals that went from wanting to change the world to making sure we take all our pills and eye drops for the day.
• Not being in such a rush and being content with what we have accomplished.
• Early goals that helped us graduate from college and find fulfilling careers and for letting go of other goals we or others expected us to have.
• Goals that have not changed much and have served as a constant in life.​

• A dream of living closer to the water and realizing that dream twenty years later.
• Goals to be used by God and to grow closer to God.
• Goals that put us on the highway of job and family and ones that allow us to wander the side roads and backroads to learn about ourselves.
• Doors that God has opened along the way and the blessings of walking through those doors.
• A life-long dream of discovering the world.
• The goal of having a widening and deepening relationship with the triune God.
• Dreams that shifted from the ones we had for ourselves to those we have for our children and grandchildren.
• The goal of celebrating good days and getting through the other days.
• A dream that others didn’t support but that led to a place of ministry, light, and peace.
• Goals that shifted from having more stuff to having more human relationships and more experiences.
• Realizing that a call to ministry can mean being myself rather than having to be like someone else.
• The goal of more living and learning so we can appreciate the little things in live and recognize what truly matters.
• A calling that shifted from early childhood education to hospice work and the recognition that both involved active listening and being present.
• Realizing that we don’t have to go downhill but that life always can continue to go up.
• Things that may stop us from progressing along expected paths and change what is important to us.
• Realizing the dream of driving a jeep to Key West.
• Moving from a childhood goal of playing right field for the Detroit Tigers to an enduring goal of helping create the beloved community and a better world for my grandchildren.

For these goals and dreams and the ones that are yet to come, we give thanks. Amen.