Reality and Fantasy

For a creative mind the line between reality and fantasy is very clear, unlike how many people perceive it I think. To the outside sometimes the creative blurs the lines of reality and fantasy. The child fighting monsters in the back yard knows they aren't real, he's simply expressing the fantasy being played out in his mind. The girls drinking tea know it's only water, and their dolls can't really drink it. The problem apparently is when the childish fantasy continues on into adult life, and adults forget what it was like to be a kid, or dismiss it because they were raised to dismiss it. Or they were teased or attacked. Shot down. Hurt.
I'm child-like at times, and sometimes I'm childish. There's a big difference in my mind. When I think of Childish, I think immaturity. When I think Child-like, I think amazement at life. Now, I'd rather not get into immaturity, so I'll focus on amazement. I watched a child last night play peek-a-boo with a total stranger, the smile on her face lit up the room. The kids I work with get excited over paper and markers. Having a leaf they colored with their name on it makes their day!
Some days I'm like that, only my version is different. I get excited over a texture, the feel of rock or glass under my fingertips. The way sound travels around a room. or brings emotion from deep within me. Are they not the same simple things? A child enjoys simple things, and I think we need to remember to enjoy the simple things.
I recently reconnected with an old friend of mine, a fabulous eccentric friend. A young woman who plays pretend with her sister, dresses up, and wears crazy hats. She gets excited over pictures in books, and collects animals. Dragons steal her heart, and grand adventures must be had at every opportunity. She is a growing woman of God, she thinks deeply and is careful about peoples feelings. She has fears and hurts and she uses her God given talents to create and enjoy life. She loves the simple and the deep, the grand and the ordinary.
This friend has helped pull me away from darkness, and has taught me again the joy that rests just below the surface of everyday life. I had hidden, and the loss that joy in the effort to protect it in a time of great pain. The apathy that came afterwards only pushed that joy farther away. Now, I feel it coming back, slowly I am finding myself again. As my friend pulls out my child-like nature, and God heals and strengthens my soul, I find myself becoming whole again.
We sometimes forget that God didn't call us to worry, and stress, and always work hard. He wanted us to play and create, to enjoy life to the fullest. Sometimes that requires a lot of hard work. It also requires rest, and relaxing. The body and mind can only work so hard and for so long, you can push beyond that limit, but it will create frustration, and your abilities will be limited. It will also hurt the image of Christ within you.
If you snap at work, and growl and grumble through life. People will look at you and say, is that what it'll be like for me? If I want to complain and snap I can do that on my own. Another friend of mine wrote about taking car of her body, and how our bodies our temples for God. If people look at us, and we reflect Christ in spite of our circumstances, and we express love towards people, they will be drawn to us. This is only true if we are real, if the Christ we reflect is truly Him and not our own ideas and concepts of him.
Onward in life I go.