Pink Bubbles and Silver Balloons

In my meditations and prayers the other night, I pictured releasing a dream I have for the future inside a pink light that turns into a balloon. This balloon floats away with my dream inside of it, and I picture letting it float off into the universe and to God, into his hands. It is an exercise of surrendering something that you desire or believe for, so that you release it to come back to you in its own timing and in its own way. For me, I leave my dream in Christ’s hands, and I surrender it to God’s will and highest good for my life. As I release whatever is in the balloon, be it better career situation, being debt free, a loving marriage, strong health, a productive and fulfilling writing life, or my dream house out in the country, I feel warm, joyful, and peaceful because I surrender my dreams to God. I know whatever this exercise has served me well for years, and I release into God’s trustworthy hands will be good.

Earlier that same day, as I listened to an audio book by Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awaked Heart, Tara told a story of a woman who was gripped with fatigue, fear, and grief after many months of battling terminal cancer. Tara takes the reader through the process of surrender that this woman underwent to find peace and gratitude for her life before her death. Her surrender and release were bittersweet, but they saturated her soul, and they immersed her in a transcendent peace.

Later, as I pictured the balloon floating away into the twilight, sadness, surrender, and joy intermingled in my mind, spirit, and body in a way that I did not expect. While I visualized the pink balloon float away in my mind, it became random balloons I have seen floating through the sky, wondering, who’s dream, whose surrender is that, floating away? Is a sky full of balloons many lost dreams and lives, or the beginning of dreams? Is that balloon the woman’s surrender of her life to God, or is it my vision of a beautiful writing life, one that I hope is ahead of me? Is it like my pink balloon, or this woman’s spirit releasing her physical body? Can they be the same?

As I continued to imagine the balloon, it turned silver, opaque, and moved rapidly away. I was at Disney World. The heat made my family grumpy, and it was approaching late afternoon. Soon, it be would time to go. My father wanted to leave already. As we passed under a brick overhang, a balloon vender sold Disney memories near the exit to the park. I attempted to take it all in, make it all last, and keep the magic alive before I returned to the crowded car and the close proximity of my dad’s mood. I begged my dad for a balloon, and he said it was a waste of money. I begged again, and my mom talked him into it.  The vender put the balloon in my little hand.

My fingers grasped the shimmery balloon with intense pride, wanting others in the park to see me. I didn’t always felt seen. I didn’t always feel like I mattered (even though I knew my parents loved me), but I had a balloon. My dad had taken the time and spent the money to buy me something that meant something to me, something that wasn’t practical, and something that wasn’t an investment or a necessity. My hand clutched the balloon in small fingers as we passed various attractions near the edge of the park. The pink ribbon felt natural in my hand, and I loosened my grip a bit. My fingers slipped, just for a second, and instead of the thin plastic string spinning between two rubbing fingers, they fingered the empty air.  

Nothing.

My balloon slipped into the air and floated higher, higher, higher.

I reached. I jumped. I cried. The balloon was gone. I grasped. I jumped. I cried. During trip back to my aunt Eunice’s house where we stayed, I leaned my head against the car’s window and cried the whole way. When we arrived at her house, I cried for hours more over my lost balloon.

Even now, I understand that the balloon itself was a loss, but why was I so inconsolable? As I meditated on the rosy bubble, and then recalled the silver balloon, emotions blended together in iridescent colors of light. Losing the balloon returned to me. I never understood why the balloon’s loss impacted me so deeply, but as I watched the pink balloon float into the universe where my heavenly father could take care of it in his own time--sadness, surrender, and realization mingled as various hues. The balloon represented a rare moment when I felt I mattered—fully. I knew I was loved, but I was a fragile child. Even before specific experiences damaged my psyche and required intense healing work, that balloon represented something that my father permitted me to have--I mattered enough for him to buy me something that wasn’t practical. Though begrudgingly, he bought it simply to make me happy—a rare experience, even though my dad did many other kinds of things to make me happy. Buying small gifts or throwing events just for me were not two of them. As I watched that balloon slip through my hands, feeling as if I mattered slipped away with it. This connection may seem shallow and materialistic, but receiving that gift wasn’t about getting the material item. Receiving a silver balloon meant my dad thought I mattered in that moment, and losing that rare moment was a loss, a loss that had to be grieved and surrendered. I did not have the tools to cope or to surrender, and I did not have a full understanding that my heavenly father knew I mattered all along. I know that now, and that is why I’ll take a pink bubble over a silver balloon any day.

Pink bubbles or silver balloons—surrender in loss and in hope of new beginnings requires opening to what is here now, and what is lost. It does not mean identifying with loss as a defining experience, but it is saying, “yes, that happened, I’m sorry, and I love you,” and knowing that God does the same. No matter what, you matter.