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The Eternal Birthday & Bethany's Imaginary Friend

Album: 33: Virtual Realities

Episode: 428

Lesson/Theme: Too much of a good thing isn’t very good/Imaginations are healthy

Bible Verse: Job 36:10-11/Matthew 6:28-29

Characters: Aubrey, Alex, Liz, Connie, Eugene, Whit

Writer:

Sound Designer: Rob Jorgensen

Original Air Date: October 30, 1999

Last Air Date: September 10, 2009

Description:
On her birthday, Liz wakes up to the alarm and a cheery invitation from her mom to the kitchen for Belgian waffles. The day progresses wonderfully. Her math class at school ends early to celebrate Liz's birthday with her favorite choca-mocha-chocolate-fudge cake with chocolate-chocolate-chunk ice cream. She receives gifts she has wanted. She hears a joke about lobsters and shrimp. Eugene promises her a gift if she will come to Whit's End the next day after school. After this day filled with fun, Liz wishes that everyday could be her birthday. Whit cautions her that she should be careful what she wishes for, because it might happen. Liz awakes the next day to find it is her birthday again! She is overjoyed at first, but after three days of the same birthday celebration, Liz tires of celebrating her birthday. She finds out that Eugene's gift to her is in the Room of Consequences when he engineers a repeat of her birthday several days in a row. At the end, she realizes that Whit knew what he was talking about. The next episode opens with Bethany imploring Aubrey to come help with an emergency. Aubrey is upset when she finds that the emergency is that Bethany's imaginary friend, Belinda is supposedly trapped under a log. After a few more annoying incidents, Aubrey calls a family meeting to talk about the nuisance of Bethany's imaginary friend. Her mother agrees and there are several extra chairs because they were having a tea party for the other imaginary guests, including Felix, Cornelius, and later, Bliebel from the Planet Glork. Bliebel was Aubrey's imaginary friend from several years before, and that reminded Aubrey she had had her imaginary friends also. Aubrey's parents explained that Tom and Connie had assured them that imaginary friends were not a big deal, because God has a great imagination, and God has made kids with big imaginations too. From now on, Aubrey will be a little more patient with her sister...or maybe not.

Questions:
Why didn't Liz like having her birthday over and over again? Eugene said "be careful what you wish for." How did Liz discover that to be important? Bethany has an active imagination. When is imagination a good thing? When is it a bad thing? Who gave us an imagination? Why is imagination important?