FANTASY

I used to worry incessantly, afraid I was living in a fantasy world. I would often say to myself and to God, “I want what is real.”  I tried eradicating my imagination, but that quickly threw me in a depression. Bad idea.

This obsessive worry was probably a throwback to living with my vivacious, Helen Hays look-a-like mother. Helen Hayes was known as the Star of the American Theater and my mother had her own dramatic flair, but unfortunately without the monetary backing to carry out her dreams.

I remember the time when I was about ten years old, she got this bee in her bonnet that she was going to buy a farm for me and my sisters. She went traipsing about the countryside in high heels with us in tow. For better or worse, this adventure came to nothing. Another time, she was all set to move us to the Island of Pine off mainland Cuba. Fortunately, this plan didn’t materialize because the island was later taken under Communist domination. So perhaps I have been justified in my concerns about my own mental health.

Over the last year or so I have objectively (ha ha!) looked at some of my expectations, especially as aging ushers in a “new season” of life.  I’ve had to face the fact that, yes indeed, I have been living a fantasy. But do you know what? It’s okay. It’s okay because I have faced the truth and now the outcome is in God’s hands.  Besides, sometimes fantasies are seeds that turn out to be real.

Thanks for listening. Now I’ve got to run and catch my ride out to the Agape Farm.

“Now glory be to God, who by His mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes” (Ephesians 3:20, TLB).