Many years ago, I was working with my dad building cabinets. We built a set for a family in the Degray community, outside of Arkadelphia. We were out there measuring and negotiating to build the cabinets, and then later to install them. It was off the main road, in the woods going toward the lower Degray lake. As a young man just starting a family, I noticed the pine thicket across the road from the house in which we installed the cabinets. I stepped across the road and walked through the thicket. I visualized a little home set back in the woods in a place carved out of the pine trees—quiet, private—our own little dream spot. In time negotiations were made with the owners and the place was purchased. My first step was to put a mobile home on it and get on the property to develop it, and carve out just the right spot in the woods for our sweet little home in the wildwoods. That involved cutting brush and burning it. One hot summer day I was burning brush and I overdid it and got too hot. The family was gone. I was there alone. I felt nauseous, so I got the brush pile I was burning burned down to what I considered a safe level, and I went in the mobile home and laid on the couch for just a few minutes to rest, before I continued the work. I fell asleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but I suddenly came awake, and much to my alarm, the woods around me were on fire. I rushed outside and took a pine bough to frantically try to slap the fires out, but it was too far gone. My beautiful pine thicket burned. After the fact, I cut it off and hauled it in for pulpwood. I was a pretty sight, handling the charred pulpwood. Now, I was sitting on a bare plot of ground, my “dream home in the wildwood,” in plain view. Well, I thought I need to make the most with what I’ve got, so I developed the land into raised beds for an organic garden. After about five years of all that gardening work, I decided a can of store-bought beans was beautiful. I was wearing myself out. I abandoned the organic garden idea. My two perfect dreams down the tubes, or rather, up in smoke and laid fallow. We sold out and moved to town. I’ve been in town ever since. We all have different life experiences. They work to mold us and shape us into the people we are. Often, dreams are shattered. What we envision fails to come to pass. But that is what is with this life—it all passes. This life passes in a wink. The one thing that does not pass is the real peace we have by committing our life and surrendering all to the Lord Jesus Christ. We can live in Jesus forever.