Surreal summer holiday

Being on this little holiday has felt incredibly surreal. We arrived a bit early for check in so we went to hang out at a nearby park for a while after locating the house but as soon as I had seen it I had a flashback to a recurring dream I used to have as a child.

This dream was one I was always sad to wake from and which always felt unfinished. There was… is… more to it.

It involved a long and difficult drive but I’m a child and I’m alone. I don’t know who is driving and we get bogged along the way.

Forrest. Lakes. Muddy ground.

Then somehow we round a bend and there is The House.

It is large and white and has rounded sections. It is the only house on a stretch of the most pristine bare beach with snow white sand and waters of turquoise blue. There is more water in front of the house and I walk down through it toward the house –

– and wake up.

I never get to the house but I know it’s for me. It’s my home.

So we arrive on this holiday. This house is not the only house but it is on a pristine beach. It is light though not white. The waters are every colour of emerald and turquoise. The sand is not quite snow white and there is vegetation but also a lagoon on the beach side of the house.

The home isn’t ours except for the weekend. I am not alone but with a fair chunk of family yet being here has felt like I’ve stepped into a waking dream. I’ve sat and watched the colours of the ocean for hours listening to music and loving the time to be still.

I’ve answered the phone twice since arriving. I almost never answer it at the best of times and almost never while away. But for some reason I did.

The first call was someone I’ve not heard from in over a decade. She’s chasing a resource I wrote 13 years ago. And on another beach holiday as I was putting that resource together I dragged our then 6 kids out at dusk on our last evening to climb a path through some scrubby sand dunes to take pictures of them in age order disappearing over the crest and into the night sky – for the cover of that resource. I remembered that photo tonight as I took pictures of our youngest two now 18 and 11 disappearing over the crest of a sand dune into the night sky as we went for our last beach walk of this time.

2006
2019

The world went kind of pear shaped after that long ago holiday. God always knew that would be the future and nowadays I’m used to the shape but it took a while to learn God was writing a different story than the one I’d assumed.

And the other surrealism came from having chatted about people we love who live in a similar size home on a beach – which turned out to be the second unidentified caller I answered to let us know her husband had had a heart attack. He’s recovering now but it was a torrid time and here we were thinking of them.

Small things perhaps… not the heart attack – the surrealisms. But they have had an undeniable effect on me. They’ve each increased my sense of wonder at being here. My gratitude for the family near and far. The immensity of the God who sees and knows and plans and prepares all along the way.

That house in my dream… my childhood self has kind of held to the idea that it is my heaven house. There’s a significance to it that is more than the ordinary. Perhaps God gave the dream all those years ago just to pave the worship filled experience of this weekend. At times I’ve felt so moved by the beauty all around I could just cry. Deciding where to sit and watch has been my only choice and dilemma.

This has been an oasis in time. And I am grateful beyond the capacity for words to come anywhere close to expressing.