One of my childhood fantasies was to be a mermaid. Ha! Of course I had no idea what this would entail, (or should I say, entale)—but with life under water, you can choose whatever role you wish it to be. I was fascinated with the notion of mermaids. I put myself into the role and felt magically transformed into a romantic and attractive creature, swishing my long fantail to get me where I needed to go. Fantasy is so great, you become whoever you want to be. There I was without my eyeglasses, no ugly skin disorder, no disabilities at all. Something transitory overcame me, and I was a swimming beauty, admired by all, lovely beyond compare, a princess of the sea. If something went wrong, all I had to do was swim away and escape to wherever it is mermaids go for refuge. Ha.
Sometimes, while swimming at our summer cottage lake, or later on, our swimming pool in Tucson, I would pretend to be a mermaid, and swim with my legs together. We would play games, such as play Mermaid Tag and “It” and the players could only swim with their legs together in the game. It was pretty fun.
When the movie The Little Mermaid came out, I thought this was one of the Disney’s best except for the ugly, dark witch. Of course every story has to have a villain, but this one seemed excessively wicked. The story line however, was most clever and I still very much like this movie, one of my favorites– for Ariel (whom we named a third cat we got since she felt so out of place), and her friends, the good godmother, and of course her dashing prince who loved her for who she was.
All kinds of things happen to us in life. Evil rears its ugly head at some point or another, sometimes more often than we would like. But there is a way of escape in the real world. God gives us a Knight in shining armor, Christ Jesus. In His comforting and strong arms, we can know rescue and delight.