I link up with Lisa-Jo on Fridays for a writing flash mob…throwing caution to the wind and gathering to share what a few minutes of free writing can buy.

Today’s topic: RACE

GO.

I worry from time to time that my dreams are going to fly away from me like a balloon that escapes a child’s wrist. Without awareness that the tie was loosening and then unexpectedly and suddenly it slips off and flies just high enough for me to be unable to grab it and I watch it ease higher and higher and higher until I can’t see it anymore.

I worry that’s going to happen to my dreams.

I worry that if I take too long to act or wait too long to pray then God’s going to find someone else who can be more responsible with the balloon and not let it go. So I race and get ahead of myself and perhaps, at times, grab balloons that aren’t mine to hold in a desperate attempt to at least be holding a balloon…some balloon…any balloon.

I worry that it’s one big cosmic competition — that if I don’t get my idea out there now, right this second, rushing things that aren’t mine to rush, that God won’t protect it and someone else will claim it as theirs. So I hold balloons emblazoned with Impatience and Fear and Inadequacy and I double-knot them so they can’t escape. So much so that the dream itself loses air, deflates and disappears.

I worry that’s going to happen to my dreams.

I need to take a large sharp pin and pop those balloons that lie to me so they can’t fly away and then come back again someday. And I need to keep my dreams tied around my wrist — tight enough so they won’t flee without warning, but loose enough that if the Dream Maker asks me to let go of them I can. And until it either comes true or I’m asked to let it go, I need to keep it inflated with prayer and hope and faith, so when it’s time to fly away with my balloon, I can.

STOP.