His Dream, Our Dream

When I was a little girl, I used to draw during my free time in class—and sometimes when I wasn’t supposed to be. I would draw my dream house. All the details were included, from knobs on cupboard doors to specific toys in the kids’ rooms. The dream house was always three stories—having always lived in single-level homes (and rentals at that), a three-story mansion seemed incredible to my imagination. And though I couldn’t effectively draw a spiral staircase, I had seen and gone up a real one once—it was definitely a part of my dream house scenario. There were lots of rooms—plenty of places for a large family…and regular house guests.

I married at eighteen, just after high school. With the adjustment of marriage added to diving right into college life, a dream house became a distant back-burner idea. But occasionally something would trigger the dream—which now looked a bit different than it had from a ten-year-old’s perspective.

Much to the displacement of our preconceived parental timeline (no pun intended), I became pregnant toward the beginning of my Master’s in Teaching program at Oregon State University. Our first child, Kristiana, was born a week after I graduated with my degree. And a luxurious dream house was pushed even farther into the future of improbability.

Years went by, and we had two more lovely children, Kalina and Josiah. Byron had stopped his school career early to work and support our growing family, which we decided was now complete. When Josiah was about three years old, we had a rare opportunity to purchase a pizza franchise. About six months later, we purchased our first home. Life was good, and business was good—until some stiff pizza competition moved in literally across the street.

Before long, we were floundering. After refinancing our house twice to invest in the business and fighting to stay above water for the next three years, we lost our business—and our home. We had always wanted a place to host parties, meetings, reunions, gatherings. And now it seemed like a fantasy at best. In the back of my mind I reasoned that maybe God didn’t want us to have our dream home because we hadn’t taken good enough care of the one we’d had—and we hadn’t had enough people over. I still didn’t understand God’s character well enough to know with unwavering confidence that He actually wanted even better for us.

We counted our blessings. We had a strong family, clothes, food, friends—and God provided a rental house for us to move to that was way more reasonably priced than we would’ve expected. Since we’ve been here, God has rekindled Byron’s passion for structural design—and he went back to school for architectural engineering. But it wasn’t until we went through an eighteen-week marriage workshop called Love After Marriage (LAM for short) that we began revisiting old dreams and believing that God truly is a father who wants to see them come to pass.

One night we started to design our dream house on the computer. I use the term “we” loosely, since I don’t have the skills Byron possesses with various drafting programs—but I gave input as to things I really want in a home. We are designing it with hospitality in mind, as well as grandchildren. I don’t know when we will actually start building this home—when it will become tangible. But what I do know is that it’s a desire God put in our hearts—and He will help us bring it into reality. I believe it will be a natural result of us seeking His kingdom first.

A dream house isn’t just for Barbies. It isn’t something only the rich and famous can have. It’s a product of creativity and vision; it’s something to hope, believe, and plan for; and it will ultimately be a reflection of our good Father’s love for us—and for all those who will gather there. He is the author of the blueprint in our hearts—so we give ourselves permission to dream. “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed” – Proverbs 16:3