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Are you a dreamer? No, I’m not referring to the legislation concerning immigrant youth brought to the US as minors who remain undocumented. Nor am I referring to the person who lives in a world of fantasy and is regarded as impractical and unrealistic. I’m referring to those who occasionally dream about an idea or project that some may consider highly speculative or improbable. Martin Luther King, Jr. was considered a dreamer, as are many scientists. I think both of my parents were dreamers, and by that, I mean they could look at a picture or “next to nothing” and envision in their minds what they could do with it. 

For example, when I needed a special dress for an important occasion, my mother would start cutting out pieces of newspaper to create a pattern for my dress. Soon, she would lay the fabric on the floor and pin her pattern to it. I would watch in awe as she began cutting the fabric. 

“How does she know if that will come together like the dress she pictures in her mind?”

A few days later, I would be wearing the dress.

She could even take a pile of clay and envision something beautiful that only she could see in her mind. Pictured is the lid to one of the little pots she hand-made. Some call this creativity. I call it one form of dreaming, for she would picture in her mind something that was not there “yet.”  

Mother provided me with several examples of “dreams” that our hands can manipulate. In contrast, my father shared an example of a different type.

After Monty and I got married in the 1960s, my parents bought a small cabin northeast of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It was located near Onyx Cave Road, in a curve on Highway 62 just past the turnoff for The Great Passion Play. Someone had built a two-car garage to live in while they constructed their home, but never built the house. Subsequently, my parents purchased the garage/cabin, and the picture shows it as I first saw it. I was unimpressed. 

We lived in Arkansas at the time and often met my parents at “the cabin” for weekends or holidays, as it was a convenient location for all the interesting things in Eureka Springs. As the years passed and my sons were born, my parents began dreaming about their cabin. We watched and participated as their cabin evolved into a two-bedroom apartment, which then expanded (on the second floor) to include a second two-bedroom apartment. Eventually, it transformed into a three-story “chalet” with a full attic room, which our sons believed was built for their use. We frequently helped my parents paint or stain woodwork and paint interior rooms. There was always something to assist with, and it kept all of us busy.

 When a nearby house on Onyx Cave Road was auctioned, my dad bought it and began transforming it as well. Neither Mother nor I thought adding so many bedrooms made any sense, but we kept our thoughts to ourselves. We assumed Daddy had a dream we didn’t know about.

All this building and construction took place in the late 1960s and 1970s before Eureka Springs had enough rooms to rent during the summer tourist season. Consequently, motel and hotel owners in Eureka sometimes personally called my parents to see if they would mind “housing” someone in one of their many extra bedrooms, since everything else within miles was fully booked. This introduced my parents to the idea of renting out their extra rooms when they wanted to. Eventually, this led them to put up a sign and officially declare themselves a motel, Smith’s Chalet, at least on the nights they chose to be available. Mother enjoyed decorating the rooms with antiques as the business gradually developed.

It wasn’t until the next decade of my father’s life that I began hearing stories about people who had been involved in accidents at the Highway 62 intersection near my parents’ place. I learned that my father would often be one of the first on the scene, helping in any way he could. Sometimes this meant he let the people stay in the motel and even loaned them his truck while they tried to get their lives back in order after an unexpected wreck during their vacation.

As I grew up, my father often recited Sam Walter Foss’ poem “The House by the Side of the Road.” He memorized that poem as a youth in school and resolved to make it the focus of his life—to live in a place of self-content, by the side of the road, and with the Lord’s help to be a friend to man. Although he had told me this was his dream since his youth, I had never given it much thought until I read some of the letters of appreciation he had received from people he had helped.

I looked at the motel my parents built “on the side of the road” in a curve that often caused people to need help, and I realized he had never let go of his dream. He was literally living that dream during a time in the latter years of his life. 

I especially like the above snapshot I took of their Smith’s Chalet motel sign because I caught my father leaning against the post at the front of the motel, gazing at the green mountains across the highway in front of their place. In my mind, Buel Smith is contemplating how God brought him to this place, where he is fulfilling his lifelong dream of living in a house beside the road and being a friend to man—along with it being a beautiful place overlooking the mountains of northern Arkansas.  I marvel at the years-long process of starting with a small, nondescript cabin, which eventually evolved into the three-story Smith’s Chalet on the highway, with its additional building located around the corner. It was a dream that had always remained in the back of my father’s mind. God brought it into reality.

Sometimes, God gives us dreams. Consider the ones He gave Joseph about how he would become a great leader. However, Joseph’s life took several difficult turns when he was sold into slavery, falsely accused, and imprisoned. After spending at least a couple of years in prison, God intervened, and he became second in command in all of Egypt. Those God-given dreams came true and eventually saved Joseph’s large extended family from starvation. Did you notice how God was not in a hurry, and He developed Joseph’s character during the delay? (Genesis 37, 39-45) 

Three things impress me regarding this second type of dreaming. First, God is not in a hurry. Second, we have no idea how God might use our dreams to benefit others in the future. And third, the Lord appears interested in using the passage of time to develop the character or skills needed for the fulfillment of the dream.

This realization leads me to understand the importance of not giving up on our dreams, but of leaving them at the feet of Jesus. This means we need to carefully guard our time so we don’t spend too much “screen time” on our computer, TV, or smartphone and miss out on those beautiful moments of dreaming and wondering, “What if…?” 

I don’t know about you, but I have to repeatedly remind myself to place my dreams in God’s hands. It’s incredible to see how He brings them about.

“I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.… I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  Philippians 4:11-13 (NKJV)