A House Is Not The Home

Since year one of our marriage, Michael and I dreamed of having our own house.

Who doesn't? But we had to set aside that dream in favor of more urgent priorities: pre-need plans, home gadgets and gizmos, the kids, etc..It's been a constant back-breaking struggle for both of us - he the provider, me the homemaker. Yet, we never let go of that dream, no matter what. It stayed in one corner of our lives, glowing and waiting for the right moment.

When we settled in this apartment three years ago, we wanted it to be the last time (which we have vowed unsuccessfully before). Not only because of all the hassle we had to go through when moving, but because our children - in a mixture of curiosity and dismay - have watched us change residences more often than criminals on the lam. To justify these relocations would require a biography that would be beside the point and also boring. Anyway, the thing is, if ever we move again, we wanted it to be to our own house already.

So I tried to squeeze and wring out from our modest income, any extra cent there is and put up what I like to call our " Dream Fund". We have set our hearts in building a log house in a secluded but ideal site in my parents' farmlot...solar-powered, with a tree house for the boys' sleep-outs.

But, as fate would have it, bad times rocked the land. Family illness, career shifts and economic recession all came together in a blink. The "Dream Fund" now has got the hook on its poor neck. And to top it all, our lessor notified that there will be a 20 percent hike in our monthly rental this month. Whew! Tell me something new....

This made us aspire more than ever to really put up our own house NOW, than paying so much for something that will never be ours. Besides, the log cabin design had been kept too long in my little box, gathering dust and moth traces over the years. I was mulling over these thoughts when my husband arrived for his late lunch one day, and said: "How would you like to go to Hongkong?"

Now, that's an odd greeting. Do starving men always dream of opulence this way?, me wondered.

Yet, he was not starving nor joking. He, or rather, we are really going to Hongkong! At a press con he just attended was an instant raffle and he got away with no less than the grand prize: free ticket to Hongkong! A junket to Hongkong was something we never dreamed, or even thought of. Only tourists and moneyed people make it there. It was, in pure and simple talk, a blessing. Or plain luck, as the skeptics would say.

I thought I would burst with glee and thanksgiving! Mike and me in Hongkong?

Gee...never in my wildest dreams! But after the jumping and jubilation, came the time to bring our feet (and heads) back to the ground. There was a catch : we need to raise around $ 1,000 for our accommodation, taxes, and pocket money. Gee...and...Hohum. We contemplated in silence.

I must add here to paint our contemplatative silence, that neither he nor I have got any money except our "Dream Fund ". It is everything we ever owned in this material world. Can we toss away that everything for a brief "living above the water " trip? Zip. Zap. Yes or No. Stay or go.

My friends and folks all tell us to GO. "It's your chance of a lifetime"...

But the money strain hurts. GO! " You must not hold on to earthly treasures"...

But who shall we entrust our kids with?

GO! "It's now or never"... BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR DREAM HOUSE?

Besides, I was praying hard for a log cabin, not Hongkong.

Then I came upon this verse from my Daily Bread in which the Psalter described

God's thoughts as not our own. It occurred to me then, that perhaps, God is telling me something but I was too busy being obsessed with the Dream House to hear. Was He telling me YES, NO or WAIT?

And I realized it was less the dream of having our own house that made me think twice. It was more of an image of where I thought a happy family ought to live.

To own a house was most definitely better than renting an apartment, but that would be allowing happiness to be defined by things the world made for us - not what we made ourselves.

Every real element of a contented, productive life we've experienced had nothing to do with our surroundings. Fun time with the kids and with each other; quiet talks; music and reading; the value of shared troubles and explosions of laughter and joy. These require no drawing room.

The trouble with dreaming sometimes, is that we begin to see opulence as a standard against which the worthy modesty of life is found wanting. It may take us most of a lifetime to get this through our heads, but this is the truth: A house is not the home. But a family is. And this manageable, rented apartment we now live still has its mansions.

So, are we, or are we not going? DEFINTELY YES! And the Dream House? IN GOD'S OWN TIME.

I dreamed of a happy home made up of my man and kids and me. The rest are incidental.