By Vinnie Derrickson
I was always a fearful child with a wild imagination. I was afraid of the dark. Afraid that loud motorcycles would literally make my ears bleed. Afraid that if I released the bath water while I was still in the tub, the drain would suck me down along with the bath water. Afraid that if I accidentally swallowed bubble gum it would balloon in my stomach and eventually decorate my bedroom walls with my innards. Afraid to walk past a graveyard lest the undead hordes rise and reenact Micheal Jackson’s Thriller video with me as the silver-gloved icon. Afraid that the spider living in my closet would one day come out and decide to lay its eggs in my nose while I slept. Most of all I was afraid of the family of ghouls and vampires that lived in my bedroom curtains. I would see them dance and frolic in the floral patterns whenever my mother switched off the light during bedtime. I would scream my lungs out and my mother would come in, give me a big reassuring hug, and sit with me till I fell asleep. One night, however, after the usual ghoulish curtain disco commenced, I screamed once again. My father kicked down the door, a deep earth quivering roar on his lips, a blazing sword in his hands with a big red “S” on his chest while gliding on roller skates, ready to slay any monsters that threatened his favourite son. I did mention my wild imagination, right? He shook the curtains and assured me that they were nothing more than printed cloth. He grabbed me by the shoulders, looked deep into my eyes and told me there are no such things as monsters. I don’t know if it was his voice, the sincere look in his eyes or maybe that growing-up thing people always spoke about, but I believed him.
However, as an adult, I have come to the crushing realization that my majestic dragon-slaying father was wrong, monsters and ghouls do exist. However, they are not blood-sucking vampires, bandage-wrapped revenants, closet-dwelling boogeymen or bipedal wolfmen from the movies. No. These, dare I say “real” monsters are of our own making. When we were babies, we spent most of our time with clenched fists. Experts in paediatrics will tell us that it is due to a neurologic reflex called palmar grasp or that is simply instinctual, mirroring the curled position we had in the womb. Some cultures believe, however, that it is more spiritual. The clenched fists represent all the blessings, ideas and hopes for the future that the good lord bestowed upon us during our time in heaven. As we grow older and are taught to grasp worldly concepts, we relax our hands and let go of said blessings and hopes in favour of corporeal trinkets. The education system “educates” all the creativity and wonder out of us and after that life beats us down so much and so frequently that we end up settling for mundane easy wins. The books we wanted to write, the businesses we wanted to start, the portraits we wanted to paint and the houses we wanted to build are packed away in a wooden box and forgotten about. We enter the rat race and schlep our way through life in a muddled stupor.
After a long life of trudging, clawing, and scraping just to get by we come to our final chapter, old, decrepit with our best years behind us. It is during these quiet moments with no fight and even less resolve left that we are haunted by our monsters. Having risen from the wooden chest we buried them in so many years ago, they surround us. After years of neglect, all the hopes, expectations and potential has been twisted, corrupted, and perverted into grotesque horrors. Large, long-toothed, bat-winged, fire-breathing, scaly, barbed tail and very angry. With yellow eyes that bore deep into our souls, they ask “Why?”. Why we never gave them life. Why we let them die in the womb. Why we allowed life to waylay us and fill our days with empty worldly vanities. And they haunt us till the day we shed our mortal shells.
I believe God gives us dreams and aspirations with the end game of manifesting his greatness. We are living in an age in which God is looking for soldiers of vision and execution. These visions are both the very purpose of your existence and the very substance of who you are as a person. What you dream of accomplishing in your life is God’s way of getting you involved in his Master Plan. At birth, you were gifted a set of goals and qualities with the purpose that you would live out your desires, pursue your dreams, develop in life and most importantly be a builder of His kingdom. So lay that first brick for your house, write the first sentence of your book and throw the first splashes of paint on the canvas, take any step no matter how small towards your dream. Trust that the God Who splits seas, defies death, heals the infirm and gives sight to the blind most surely can help your dreams come to realisation. And by following your God ordained path, you will stave off some ghouls and goblins.