The flip side of the coin

 

I have to make a confession here:

I am blessed with a great gift of imagination. That means I have a lot of imagination and fantasy. And that’s a wonderful thing. It allows me to be creative, to think things up. In earlier years, for example, I wrote countless plays and saw in my mind’s eye how the play would unfold on stage long before any actor set foot on said stage. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, this gift also has its downsides, especially when the imagination strikes in real life. And this brings me back to my confession: I am a catastrophizer. Recently, it happened again. I hadn’t heard from my daughter for a while and started to worry. Gifted as I am, my imagination immediately came to my aid and my head conjured up the wildest horror scenarios. I’m really good at that. I could fill books with the number of terrible incidents, accidents, illnesses, disasters, and wild events that my imagination has already conjured up. My husband is familiar with this, and when my daughter disappeared from the radar for a while that day, he said, “Your imagination is worse than any reality could ever be.” He’s got a point…

 

So, what can I do? In all likelihood, I will never get rid of this “gift.” I don’t want to get rid of the positive side of it anyway. Personally, when the negative version of this fantasy rears its head again, it helps me to consciously let reality into my thinking and to first rationalize the event for myself. How likely is what you are imagining right now? What could theoretically be behind it in practical terms (cell phone off, busy, etc.)? Questions like these help me a little, as my nightmares are mostly thoughts that fall into the realm of speculation.

And then there’s the God factor. The God who, unlike me, knows the future exactly, who has 100% oversight and control over all the events I encounter every day, even if he doesn’t necessarily always take control. Laying down what’s going on in my head to this God over and over again helps me “calm down.” He says: Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10 (NIV). So, take a deep breath and be still for a moment…