Dreams Do Come True | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Dreams Do Come True | Previous Challenge Entry
By Dot Hannah
12/14/16
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Dreams Do Come True

As she stood beside a flowering rose bush on a summer day, the memory of a memory came sliding off the storage rack. Like a flame in a windy place, it flickered brightly and refused to be put out. It is difficult to find words for the sensation which came over her. She stood in another dimension, an invisible world. Eventually, like a voice from a far distance, the present returned. As pleasant as the memory, she understood that always daydreaming about yesterday was robbing her of today.

These same memories would reawaken in her time and time again. In it, she was a young wife and mother, so happy she would not exchange her lot for all the pleasures in the world. Now, many years later, she was a widow and her children were grown. The slight figure with her soft, warm complexion and hazel eyes quickly tried to hold back hot tears, but they poured down her cheeks like tiny rivers.

In the old days, life was so busy. She had advanced to a much more empty level where she fought daily to find meaning and purpose. Her connection to her husband was just as concrete as ever, always his memory in the remote recesses of her mind. She viewed herself as a creature ill-adapted to life and the world she was now forced to exist in. In order to cope, she had fallen into a spontaneous familiar pattern, daydreaming about the past. The dream was always the same, of a strong man holding her hand and smothering her in sweet kisses.

Her back turned to the warm rays of the morning sun, she said to herself, “I will not continue to feed this, for if I do, it will feed upon me.” She understood her life juices were being sucked out, and she recognized her daydreaming as a snake which she would have to behead. Life is an amazing journey with triumphs, struggles, pain and perseverance. She thought to herself, “There is nothing wrong about reflecting on the past and remembering someone you love, but it is consuming me. Somehow, I must function in the present, living for the balmy sun, mystic moon and dashing waves of today.” It would take courage. It would take the help of God. She understood this, and she clearly recognized she would have to seize every opportunity.

She began to get involved in old passions, such as attending church. At first, she felt out of place, as though she were on the outside peering through a window pane and wondering how to get inside and connected. However, the day came when she felt more like an insider, and appreciated the new friends she had made. She was not the only one living a new, unsettling life. She met others who had also lost their mates and were struggling with radical changes also.

They began a tradition of getting together on holidays and sharing a bountiful meal. On one of these occasions she rounded the corner into her roomy, bright dining room and sniffed the familiar smells of Christmas, overjoyed to see all the friends who had just taken their seats at her rich, walnut table. She began pouring hot, steaming coffee into every mug, and it was at this moment that an idea became like a picture coming into focus. “How needful for the lonely to have a place to go on holidays and be with others,” she said. None of us are wealthy, but if we all pool our resources together and open up our homes, we can provide a valuable ministry.” Her energy was released as if it were an animal let out of a cage and her purpose unfolding like a flower.

Dreams do come true. Her ministry flourished as the years rolled by. She began to live in the here and now and found deep fulfillment in helping others adjust and cope with loneliness. Not everyone who came into her home was elderly. There were also young single mothers who had small children, and there was the lonely college freshman whose family could not afford to bring him home for the holidays. At the end of every meal she could say, “A good time was had by all.” And this is precisely what a loving and compassionate God is about. He brings us to no season in life to dry up and die, rather come alive and seek meaning by helping others.

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