Super classy of HGTV to wait until the election of the Pope until they announce the winner of the Dream Home. Ok, now get on with it!

I am grateful for a God who—even though He allows burdens—makes everything beautiful, places eternity on our hearts and has a plan for each one of us. If you are the winner, that’s awesome! What a gift! If you are one of the many other dreamers who entered along with me and didn’t win, it’s all good. Because life is fragile, let’s all strive to live a life of purpose, one that matters. One where we see God at work, with us each step. Following God, not in a funeral procession but in a joyful victory lap.

Thanks HGTV for encouraging my dream! Thanks for letting me share!

So that’s our dream. And it’s been a fun one to have over the past few months. “The first thing I want to do with Heart House is…” “At Heart House, how do you think we could get sponsors to send families there?” “Thinking about Heart House today…maybe we should think about…” “Really looking forward to March 15, how do you think they’ll contact us?”

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably a nut like me. I will close with this. Through this whole season I’ve been led to Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 which says: “I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”

We live in Hinsdale, a suburb of Chicago (which is full of creative, talented and generous people but probably not the answer to the clue that Monica posted about…). As tempting as it would be to sell everything and relocate to Kiawah Island we probably wouldn't be able to do that for a long time. That’s when I started thinking about “Heart House.” How awesome would it be to have a retreat for families of those who are dealing with PPCM? A place for those who truly understand this condition can gather and do what’s best: rest, relax and be surrounded by friends and family. My wife and I both work for NPO’s and we have enough knowledge to form a simple non-profit and hopefully bless and connect as many people affected by this as possible.

One of the struggles with being a 29-year-old new mother with heart failure is that even though you look normal on the outside you feel terrible on the inside. It’s hard for my wife to put this feeling into words and it’s hard for me to fully understand. (Just imagine being a young, healthy, pregnant woman and then leaving the hospital a new mother with heart failure, visiting doctors that help 80-year-old all day long). A few friends have put my wife into communication with other women who have this condition and that has been incredibly helpful. That’s when the dream of winning this house took on a new shape in my mind.

Then one day I saw the Dream House special and something in me clicked. Maybe we needed something outside of our present chaos to dream about? So I did. And each day I would enter my wife and I for the drawing. I watched every video, took every virtual tour and kept bugging my wife to dream with me. She would ask, “What are you doing?” and I would say, “Something good for our family.” First she laughed (always a welcomed response), then she reasoned (“The odds of winning are insane.”). After a few weeks my wife finally said, “I saw the house, it’s perfect.” She loves South Carolina (I’ve never been) so I would ask her what it’s like down there and we would talk about what we would do with the house (totally keep it! I’ll get to that in a minute…), with the money (pay all the taxes and then pay down our 2 mortgages) and the car (sell it and then buy my dream car, a 1976 Ford Bronco Sport). These are all good dreams and good memories.

I hesitate to write but as it's probable that this cathartic experience is coming to an end I thought I would share my story of this Dream House.

Last May my wife and I welcomed our first child, a beautiful baby girl, into the world. We also were faced with one of the biggest challenges of our lives as my wife was diagnosed with Peripartum Cardiomyopathy (PPCM), a rare heart disease that weakens the heart during the final stages of pregnancy. Months of medication, rehab, salt and fluid restrictions, wearing a Life Vest and eventually having an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) implanted soon followed. My wife is a fighter and dealt with each challenge with dignity and grace. We clung to faith in God and the support of friends, family and church. We also watched a ridiculous amount of HGTV during those months (and I continued working to improving our 1920’s fixer-upper as a result).