The Treasure Room
Here’s the wild and unbelievable story of our beginnings. That is, the story of our life that began twenty years ago on May 18th, 2000. Twenty years ago, we popped an unfamiliar key into the lock on the front door, turned the old brass handle and walked over this barn threshold into the most dramatic newness we had ever experienced. We smelled the beautiful smell that still welcomes us after a long time away. The very vastness of this place...all the nooks and nuances...was all a burgeoning discovery. And what a discovery it was! Between juggling the demands of life with little people, selling our little townhouse, keeping our little townhouse presentable while dealing with the little people, and reckoning with a somewhat erratic and unreasonable seller, we had very little time to actually explore the place and see what we were getting into. Our faith was stretched and our vision directed our leap into the unknown.
So, the day we were handed the keys marked the beginning of a true adventure. That day, our then six-year-old called to me over a wall above the stairwell...“How do I get to you mom?”.
Our five-year-old discovered the “boot step”, a hinged footer in the stairwell used for storing boots back in farming days. And our toddler easily scrambled up a floating staircase that my mother swore would be the death of our children (not a lot of child-safe features in an old dairy barn). We found a cabinet full of antique water glasses the previous owner called her “gift” to us. We found the kitchen cabinets still loaded with stuff, and the old milkhouse (now a pantry) full of cleaning supplies better suited for an industrial plant. And then...there was the Treasure Room.
On the main floor where cows once lived, there was an expansive utility room. It was designed as a big workshop for the man who once lived here and worked on antique cars. It was a storage space for the lady of the house who wrote about antique toys. Now it’s a quiet hallway with bedrooms and bathrooms and scratched up baseboards from years of clamoring children and clumsy vacuuming. But back then, way back twenty years ago, our children christened it the Treasure Room.
The Treasure Room was probably labelled the Trash Room by the previous owner. Elderly and widowed, she must have reasoned that it was a good place to put anything she didn’t know what to do with, or couldn’t find a way to get rid of, or couldn’t summon the emotional strength to part with. In all cases, and most remarkably, her trash became our treasure.
The Treasure Room was truly an eclectic store. There were unopened packs of paper, pencils, and folders, which were perfect for our homeschool. There were curious wind-up antique toys, which were perfect for curious wound-up children. In our first months here...literally for months...we unearthed a beautiful watercolor painting of our barn, some jewelry, antique chairs, office equipment, snake-bite kits, woodcuts from the giant pine out front, antique bells for calling servants (although I still haven’t found any servants to summon), and much much more. This was not your typical move-in. But it was the perfect move, because the real treasure was the vision that got us here.
Back then, all those 20 years ago, I believed in the vision of settling in this old barn. I could really see it...see us...making it a homestead, a steady home for our children, a safe place for them to grow up and write their own stories, a healing home for every visitor to see through dusty rafters and weedy gardens...straight through to the face of God smiling peace over this place. It was a pretty, polished vision. But before we signed papers, hauled in boxes, and rocked babies to sleep, we experienced a grueling year of disappointment, discouragement, and really, what seemed the death of the dream altogether. And I wish I could say that other inspired visions have only taken a year to reach their fulfillment. So many visions since then have ached, sputtered, and dwindled to a smoking ember over many years...and many tears.
Maybe you are like me...a visionary. Visionaries experience the pure delight of seeing what could be...often, what will be. But also, visionaries are assigned to wrestling with time, to agonizing waiting. This is our road: the questioning and loneliness of seeing and believing what others
don’t...the holding onto the promise in the long silence between revelation and the ultimate realization of the dream. Treasure seeking, quite honestly, induces hyperopia...or farsightedness. We visionaries often become farsighted travelers. With our eyes fixed on the horizon, we miss the flowers at our feet. We sit staring at the oven, waiting for the warm cookies and we miss out on licking the batter from the bowl. And our hearts, and lives become heavy with the weight of waiting.
And still I wonder...what is the real treasure? Is the real treasure the vision fulfilled...the dream realized...the miracle moment? Or could it be that the treasure is the first day we receive the glorious vision, followed by all the uneventful days of walking toward the treasure, even when it feels like stumbling up a rocky path? When I was a little girl, our beloved next-door neighbor created a fantastic tree house in the woods for all the neighborhood kids to enjoy. All the trails from his house back to that wonderful tree house were made of course stones and pebbles. I don’t recall wearing any shoes in my childhood, so you get the picture. To get to the treehouse I had to first traverse the rocky road. And boy did I! My feet grew so strong and capable I could easily run those stony paths without any pain or stubbed toes.
Oh if we could only see what is being formed in us along the way to our treasure room. How are our feet being strengthened for walking over new thresholds? So these days, this visionary is aiming to discover gifts on the side of the road instead of trudging head-down to the final destination...but it’s not easy. Slowing to learn how to manage disappointment; bending down to pick up some glinting contentment; sowing some seeds of gratitude...these things are the balm for farsighted eyes. In this tender training I am equipped. In this purposeful passing of time,
I gain purpose.
So take heart frail vision-bearer. Sometimes you’re walking inside the bubble of a miracle and you don’t even know it...often for days, months, or years. Then one day, you step outside of it and see it as you would observe a snow globe...a movie perfectly produced inside a beautiful rainbow of color, resting in the palm of God.
Comments