Diana’s House of Dreams

Do you remember Anne Shirley of Green Gables fame? If, like me, you’re a lifelong fan of the feisty redhead, you’ll also recall that she lived in a cottage called Patty’s Place during her college days and boarded at Windy Poplars while doing battle with the Pringles as a high school principal in Summerside, PEI. Then, when she and Gilbert Blythe were about to get married, they searched for their first home together, what they called their House of Dreams.

I have a thing about houses. Maybe I learned it from Anne decades ago. Maybe it stems in the present tense from repacking my suitcase every few days during a recent six-months furlough. And maybe, it comes from 40+ years as a missionary, moving every few years with rarely a place to call my own for long. In my temporary and provisional landscape, the idea of Diana’s House of Dreams seldom featured, believe me.

“What God has given you to do is beyond you…and never up to you.” –Allen Arnold, Daily Thoughts

So I’m inching out on a limb here, and it’s probably now or never. Today’s post has gathered dust in my computer files for months while I spent prayer time building up the courage to share it with you. Because it’s so personal, you see. I think: Maybe no one will understand. And then again, it might encourage someone.

Here’s probably the bravest and boldest of my stories. Precisely because the story remains inconclusive. And I have no clue about the ending scene of Diana’s House of Dreams.

“We wait in fear for a happy ending we cannot write.” –Lewis Smedes, Standing on the Promises

Unknown Future

My husband and I are busy and happy most days in Chile. But sometimes we’re busy and tired. As we creep toward our seventies, we’ve had to struggle with seeing our retirement plans slip away. (Or, as I call it, our change of ministry focus.) The house of dreams we’ve invested our savings in has become un-resalable due to new and unforeseen government restrictions.

What’s next after the projects we’ve committed to here? I honestly don’t know. This is where we put ourselves and our future into God’s hands, “cast your bread on…the waters, and…after many days…” (Eccl. 11:1, NAS) see what He might do for us.

In other words, as the character Melissa Travis chides her friend Nicolás in Destiny at Dolphin Bay, this challenging situation presents an opportunity “to see if you mean what you say about trusting God.”

“Unfortunately, the very gift of imagination that makes the human mind so glorious also increases its vulnerability to worry… Giving into fear is a joy-killer… Most worriers tend to have high-capacity imaginations…often much creative potential… The power of the ‘what-if’ becomes overwhelming. What if I had trusted Him? When you come to the end of your life, all those what-if’s become might-have-been’s. What might have been if I had trusted God, instead of giving into a mindset of fear and worry? What might I have done or become?” –John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get out of the Boat

It’s also a chance to be completely authentic, downright transparently real. Did you know the word “authentic” comes from the root, “to author”? Opening this fragile window into my life means passing the pen in faith to Jesus, the Author of my story and the Architect of my house of dreams.  

Most of us aren’t exactly comfortable with that. The whole step-out-on-a-limb thing reminds me of the pair of sparrows who built their nest on a low-hanging palm frond in our backyard this past spring. We couldn’t imagine it as a sensible decision for home-building. It wouldn’t have been our choice, for sure.

Yet…it worked for them. And we enjoyed a front-row seat for the show—the eggs, the babies, their growth and eventual flight from the nest of dreams. If God cares about the sparrows, surely He cares about you and me.

Uncertain Address

He’s never let us camp out in a treehouse yet, but we have, I confess, cringed before the possibility of living under a bridge.

How can any of us contemplate such a future—or even such uncertainty—with any sort of joy and peace?

The Gospels mention compensation for disciples who leave houses and lands, though earlier in our lives, we never gave that much thought. We possessed no dream home or estate to give up at that stage.

Growing up, I experienced only three house moves, and even then, I always attended the same schools. On the other hand, my husband’s family of origin regularly relocated west to east across Canada as they ministered among the indigenous peoples. Rich roots, they had. A legacy of houses and lands? Not so much.

After we married, the list of temporary apartments began:

• Elm Street, next to the church
• Young Street, across from the fire department and near the town library
• Pleasant Street, at the top of the hill
• And Highway 281 during Spanish language school in Edinburg, Texas.

Then the furlough refuges:

• Elm Street again, different building, different decade
• Braemar Court—loved that Scottish name
• Crombe Road in Shubenacadie, NS
• Adam McCallum Road in Onslow Mountain
• Truro Road in Brookfield
• And Highway 870 in Belleisle Creek, NB…to name a few.

But over 40 years in Chile, I suppose we can count comparatively few:

• Mocopulli Avenue in Dalcahue, Chiloé
• La Travesía in Palo Quinto, Linares (“The Voyage”—loved that name too!)
• Pedro H. Allende at the corner of Colo-Colo Avenue, near the famous soccer stadium in Macul, Santiago.

Unwanted Prospects

While we loved each one of those places in their time, I probably didn’t call any of them my house of dreams. Until we moved to Los Copihues in Sindempart, Coquimbo, seven years ago. (The copihue is Chile’s national flower, in a neighborhood of flower names.)

When we first landed in the cloud-swathed port city of Coquimbo, I toyed with starting a blog about how much I hated the house we rented. I know, strange idea. And hardly edifying.

But I thought it might evolve into how I eventually fell in love with the place: The burnt-orange walls, the pitted kitchen tile, the bathrooms whacked together with sale-of-the-month fixtures, the termite dirt piles, and the rusty windows that broke my fingernails to open.

“Our disappointments are God’s appointments.” –paraphrased from Robert J. Morgan,100 Verses That Made America

Umm, never happened. Though guessing which of our daughters’ photos would tumble off the shelves in each earthquake became a sort of game. And when we left, I sorely missed the huge closets, the general spaciousness, and the cathedral ceiling and white stone fireplace in the living room. It wasn’t all bad, but no house of dreams either.

Unexpected Doors

The abbreviated saga of how we ended up building a home on Lot 80, Totoralillo, starts with the “hook” of a dish of seafood ceviche and an ocean view. (Yeah, we’re suckers for both.) Then followed Chile’s 2019 social uprising and the 2020-2022 Covid pandemic on its heels.

Here at the midpoint of the story, the house of dreams squats on 1/10 of an acre in a glorified gravel pit, sandwiched between a gigantic boulder, a barbed-wire fence, and two high concrete walls. The view vanished when the neighbors constructed on the property line. (See my blog post on Home Motifs.)

I could write about the plague of local dogs that makes “nature” walks hazardous. Or the hurricane-force winds and the man-eating weeds. I could tell you about the electrical blackouts and the dragging Internet. I could not tell you how many times we’ve run out of water.

But instead I’ll choose to brag on the Pacific sunsets (that I can just glimpse from the corner window) and the beach strolls, the chorrillana marina and café helado, and the nearby surfing school that’s the envy of elsewhere in the country. Maybe I need to water every day all summer, but I have aloe vera and fresh basil for the picking. And cherry tomatoes that simply won’t stop growing.

But as things stand right now, we can’t sell it. Unless, of course, someone wanted to buy the property without a deed, which seems unlikely.

“Your hopes, dreams, and callings are impaired by distorted fears and worry… Fear spreads, but so does trust. Daring faith is contagious as well.” –John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get out of the Boat

So we’re searching for a retirement house of dreams with empty hands. Time hastens on, and I’ll confess again, I’m afraid to begin. And beginning to be afraid. But I’ve often been challenged to write about what I’m afraid of. So—deep breath—here I am, afraid.

Afraid you’ll condemn my vulnerabilities. My lack of trust in God.

I’m afraid you’ll think I want too much. Or maybe you’ll think I ask for too little.

Sometimes I’m afraid to ask at all, for worry that God won’t come through, and we’ll both look forlorn in a rather public forum.

So be it. What is faith but a wobbling step into the darkness, a leap into thin air?

Unforeseen Ways

I find myself identifying with the character Cristina Linnenbrink, whose story I’m in the process of retouching these days. Like Anne Shirley and me, Cristina’s obsessed with houses—almost unwittingly. After growing up in a hodgepodge of locales, from the world’s most exotic to the most mundane, and backpacking across Europe without even a pied-à-terre, she’s more than ready to settle into her house of dreams.

“You can’t write a better story than the one you’re living.” –Flourish Writers

But then her anthropologist father asks her to accompany him on a research project to an isolated island in distant Chiloé. There she finds a quaint house that’s much more of a home than anywhere she’s lived before. She falls in love with the place before she ever connects with the people.

Although some years have passed since I wrote the original draft of Legacy of the Linnenbrink Light, I realize that my own unspoken longing for a permanent house of dreams filtered into the book without my conscious awareness. This delicate emotional thread, woven throughout the story, entwines intimately with the character’s growth and identity. It’s the golden strand in the end.

Anne, an insecure orphan in desperate need of love, found her confidence and place in the world through a caring home. Cristina, an overconfident quasi-social climber who feared exposing her true self, heeded the call to return to who she was at home and at heart.

“This does not mean that we only write happy pieces. As we embrace both the devastation and celebration of life, we bring hope and light to our readers.” –Deanne Welsh, When God Calls a Writer

I too am trying to rest in this subplot of my story and trust that the Author has a grand resolution planned, an unexpected twist alongside the main plotline. He makes a habit of providing solutions from the oddest and most unpredictable sources.

Not surprising. After all, our Lord was born in a barn, because there was no room in the inn. He lived in poverty and obscurity and often had nowhere to lay His head (Luke 9:58). No house of dreams for Jesus. He was even buried in a borrowed tomb.

But rose in triumph and ascended home to heaven. Talk about a mind-bending plot twist.

Unseen Hands

Though I can’t yet say I walk in the peace of that perfect victory, I take one step, one day, at a time. Because many kind friends have offered hope, encouragement, and prayers along our way. And God gives “grace in the wilderness” (Jer. 31:2, NAS) and “blessings in the barren land” (NLT).

“I have cast my anchor in the port of peace, knowing that present and future are in nail-pierced hands.” –Arthur G. Bennett

Whenever I’m tempted to wonder if faith is but a sham, if trust in God is only a mind trick—I risk it all again. I dare to reveal my heart and keep writing about my journey. The hard things in life are where the story lies and where the secret joys are often hidden.

So stay tuned to this unfinished story of a house of dreams. A long time may pass before you read another installment in the saga.  Maybe you’ll never hear from me on the subject again because, as Amy Carmichael said, “No is also an answer.”

Then again, maybe I’ll recount how God came through in a remarkable way. He always has. And not always at the 11^th hour—sometimes it’s 11:59.

Anne’s last house of dreams was called Ingleside. A curious name, isn’t it? Turns out an “ingleside” is “a nook beside an open fireplace.” Could God arrange a fireside nook in my future?