KEEPING DREAMS ALIVE

My energetic, beautiful, grandmother, writer-friend Jennifer, age 71, wrote in her current newspaper column about fulfilling one of her sort-of-bucket-list dreams this week.

I quote from her column which she calls, TOP BLOND: LIVING ON THE RUN.

“How long should we keep a dream alive? One year? Five? Until it comes true? It depends, one might say, on how realistic or feasible it is. But, does that really matter? To some degree, it does. Perhaps it really boils down to importance. If our dream is truly significant to us, we will find a way to make it come true. 

"Now that my kidney transplant and open heart surgery are behind me, I feel a responsibility to embrace the second chances given me. One came from love (Dot, my kidney donor), and the other from the skill of a surgeon's hands. Both are miraculous blessings and have afforded me a new lease on life....“The day may yet come when my body, or mind, won't allow me to continue 'living on the run' [the title of her column]. Until that day, I'll be looking for ways to keep kicking up my heels!”

I wrote in her comment space, “I applaud you loudly! As a long-time lung cancer surgery survivor myself, I'm running beside you as we try to fulfill God's 'bucket list' of His individual life purposes for each of us.” I signed it “Your Birthday Buddy,” since we celebrate our birthdays on the same June 22^nd date but I'm 20 calendar years in age ahead of her.”

IN PURSUIT OF DREAMS

Leona Choy

I have some dreams, Lord

leftovers from early years

just hanging there in midair

whose strings I can't let go

some goals that I can't meet

some desires of my heart of hearts

plans I can't complete.

I wonder now—

were they even meant

for fulfillment?

Perhaps some are my own

foolish fantasies

hot air balloons of self

launched from the platform

of my puny pride.

Is my chief distress

that they'll come hissing down

to my embarrassment

without accomplishment?

Then teach me relinquishment

to cut the strings

of those inappropriate dreams

and self-ambitious things

to let them go

and not despair

to surrender them

to Your sovereign care

and be content

to leave them there.

Yet—if perchance the dreams are meant

by Your Divine intent

to come to reality

for Your glory and not mine

inspire me, enable me, my Lord

to pursue them relentlessly

if need be

all the way from here to Eternity!