Those Pesky Chimeras

 So some people collect stamps; I like to collect words. No one’s ever accused me of being ‘smart’ but sometimes I like to be a “smart aleck” and throw out a word in casual conversation that not many of my cohorts will immediately understand. It’s fun to watch their reactions, like, “Oh! You mean THAT fogdog!” or else, “I think I knew that …”

Today’s word is “Chimera”. If you already know what that means, there went my fun for today. You can skip ahead to the application.

“Chimera” is a noun that describes something wished for but is either illusory or impossible to achieve. Lately I’ve been painfully aware of two chimeras in my life. One comes to mind when I’m looking back; the other when I’m looking ahead.  

Not that I’m counting, but I believe I’ve spent about 80% of my adult life on a diet, on that never-ending search for the perfect body. Now time is teaming up with my best intentions, bringing me one more step toward accepting this as the chimera it is. I’m bracing myself for your responses, and yes, you are all absolutely right. God gave me a “fearfully and wonderfully made” body for which I am really really grateful. My job is to use it for His glory to the best of my ability, even though I may never be able to get into those cute clothes I wore in High School. (I never really wanted to do that anyway, but it’s easier to accept).

The other chimera comes when I think about the future. So many hopes and dreams. I have a friend who loves to plan out her life, but she would agree, the problem with this, as we all know, is that there is no way we can SEE our future!  How then, can we make it happen the way we envision it? Yes, there are all kinds of “Vision wannabees” out there, but it must remain just a ‘chimera’.  impossible to achieve or predict.  

Is this helpful, in any way? As fellow believers we have an indescribable and eternal future. I want us all to love who we are and not be held back by pesky chimeras that only serve to nip away at our joy. 

God has put me on an exciting journey with fellow pilgrims like you. Don’t let that word, “reality” diminish the other word, “possibility”. At the end of the day, I suppose, it’s only God Who can show us which dreams to work for and which ones to let go of. 

“With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”   (Matthew 19:26)

And let’s don’t forget my favourite, Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

“Faithfully” yours, Marsha


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Different Kind of Tour

  Recently in Wales, we took TWO £200 tours. Luckily we've budgeted for this, so even though that's expensive (about $300 each), we were OK Both were very enlightening.  The first one took us around to several castles and into the national park of the mountains of Snowdonia.  One of the castles, called Carnarvon, is where Prince Charles became the "Prince of Wales" a few years ago (now he's the King).  I'm pretty sure C.S. Lewis must have seen this castle and used it as inspiration for “Cair Paravel”, the legendary gathering place for Aslan (read “Jesus”) in his “Lion, Witch and Wardrobe” series. We also found out that the town of Llandudno (in the Welsh language and pronounced something like “Clendendno or something) was one of the selected cities where thousands of English children were sent to be safe in WWII.  Again, right out of the C.S. Lewis series, although in his book, Lewis didn’t mention that it was only children of royal and very wealthy families w...
Read more

The Beauty of Bin Chickens

So I'm happy to say we've just about completely recovered from Cyclone Alfred we had a few weeks ago.   Repairs are being made, roads are open and for the most part there is food on the shelves.  All the studies and events we enjoy are beginning to be happening again. Several of our friends went 9 days with no electricity.  Who knew that the Eucalyptus tree that Australia is famous for has a root system of about 11 inches deep?!  I could probably write a whole blog about that.  And, "Surfers Paradise", our world renowned beach, has no sand, but they say it'll come back. And on another positive note, I’ve had some 'extra' time when everything was still down, to do some 'study' out my back window........looking out over the flooded floodplain. What an interesting time that was.  I don't want the 'lake' to stay there, but it gave me something beautiful to look at while we waited.  Now it's gone again.  Our neighbours have been here 47 ...
Read more

Ministry and Life at the Crossroads

 I think I have a problem. This morning as I checked the news, I got an alert to urgently pray for the missionary staff of a hospital located in the Goma and Northern Kivu region.  If you google that on a map, it's located in the "democratic" Republic of the Congo, (DRC) on the far eastern side near Uganda and Rwanda.  They're having a war, and the hospital has been cut off from everything, in a very dangerous situation.   It's sorta complicated, but let me try to explain my feelings here.  Tony and I spent about 15 hours trapped in an airport in Kinshasa with a 2-yr-old back in 1977.  The officials had 'confiscated' our passports.  They'd also (just for fun) locked the toilets, so we were 'stuck' in several ways.  We had a lot of time to pray.  Tony had been in the Congo a few years before and due to corrupt border guards was forced to buy the entire group a beer to get his car (and who knows what else) back.  Suffice it to say, we...
Read more