Daydreams

It is my dream to own a home one day.

When I am laying awake at night trying to relax enough to sleep, I think about what it will look like. What colors I will paint the walls, how I will decorate. What it would be like to have holidays there, and that feeling of “coming home” the kids will have when they’re grown and visit.

I joke with Michael that my decorating style is “teddy bears wearing dresses”, but I could better describe it as Parsonage, that mid-century time capsule, intangible and universal grandparent home.

It is always warm and there is so much sunlight streaming through the curtains. You can see the little floating particles in the air and it’s kind of magical, like everything has slowed down around you. There is a sitting room near the front door with that couch that looks like it has never been sat on, and every item looks like it has a story to tell. The furniture and decor is a mishmash from all decades, but all of it is so lovingly cared for--they were bought not for a season, but for a lifetime. This is a place where prayer happens, where faith is practiced. It has a feel of Sanctuary, a place of calm and quiet and rest, light and life and love.

To me, that is what home is supposed to be. A peaceful place.

I think it has a lot to do with my particular view of God. Since I was a little girl, I have been inexplicably drawn to the idea of The Fountain. I remember when I was about seven or eight, we were singing the song “There’s a Fountain Free” as the invitation at my hometown church. It was in the old auditorium because we hadn’t built the new one yet, so it was all that red on red on red--red bench-style pews, thin red carpet, like you had been swallowed whole by some Lovecraftian beast. That was my favorite color. We were singing this song and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me:

There’s a fountain free

Tis for you and me

Let us haste oh haste to its brink.

My grandmother has this voice that is legendary within our world. It is clear and strong, unmistakable. When she sang, I imagined angelic choirs in white robes and golden glow, trumpets, the whole nine yards. She was singing this song and it hit a line: Thirsty soul, hear the welcome call--tis a fountain open for all.

I don’t know why it struck me so hard. This was post-cat-exploding on me so I was familiar with the concept of death and heaven, though I had not yet lost anyone close to me. (I come from long-lived stock.) There wasn’t a definitive time that my parents sat down with me and we had the life and death talk like you see in sitcoms; more of an ongoing exposure through church that beyond this life, there was something waiting.

New places and new experiences are not things I actively seek out, so even then, this idea was terrifying. The beautiful language used to describe it, from pearly gates to golden streets. Growing up in a modest home with a modest family, these were not concepts I was actively familiar with. It sounded foreign and massive and intimidating. I pictured dirty and scraggly me not being able to fit into this heaven, too plain, too simple, too ...little.

To hear it described as a fountain, I suppose ostensibly I was supposed to combine it with the other ideals and envisioned a grand water feature a la the Trevi fountain, something awe-inspiring, but I didn’t. To little seven or eight year old Andie, the “living stream with a crystal gleam” was more private, natural, a place where maybe I could fit in, too.

God is often thought in these vast, monumental terms. We think of Him as the creator of the heavens and the cosmos; He who holds the earth in his hands and made the seas and the skies, caused the mountains to rise and can command them to fall again. This big, big God that does big, big things.The perpetual runt of the litter, I didn’t feel like I could fit into that version of God because I am not big big people, capable of big big things. He made the little things too, though.

He crafted bumblebee wings and strands of hair, specks of dust. He made many and much, and little and enough. It is in His power to fashion an infinite heaven of mansions, gilted roads and jewel-encrusted entrance. And if He could do all that, He could make a place for one dirty, scraggly, small Andie.

I am not in any kind of hurry to buy a house. There is no urgency--I watch my house-flipping shows, kind of a little sad as they rip out beautiful floral wallpaper and carpet that looks like it would be so soft under my feet. They make the homes a little colder in my eyes, more impersonal, with granite counter tops and open floor plans, and rob it of all the cozy warmth of it. My tastes are far from fashionable, but I am patient--trends change, and it’ll come back around again, I am sure. Michael and I go on dates to open houses, holding hands and talking about the house we will grow old together in. And at night, I have my daydreams of planting a garden, reading in the sunlight, decorating Christmas trees, making memories.

There is no urgency because I trust that God is making a place for me. Not just a place beyond, the fountain of rest, but somewhere earthly. Every time we have needed a place, God has provided--when we got evicted from our dank and dingy apartment, there was a beautiful yellow house on a quiet street for us; when it was time to say goodbye to Lubbock, we were blessed to find a rental right by Michael’s new work in Abilene. Proximity lead us to our new church home, a building that embodies everything I dream about--the sunlight and the peace, the feeling of belonging--and a church family that has blessed us so greatly, supported and loved us through our crazy lives and crazy family.

So I can wait. Because I know when it happens, it will be better than I could have ever dreamed. --Andie