When I was single I used to have this quote up on my wall. I am not sure who made it up. But it totally fit my life.
"Men I want don't want me.
Men I don't want think I am 'the one.'
Men I think are 'the one' act as if I am not there.
Men I treat as if they are not there want me.
If I could be anyone I wanted to be,
I'd be one of the women who doesn't wants the men who want the women who aren't me."
It seems for some of us it is innate to always want what we can't have. It was true of me in my dating life. It is true now because lately I have REALLY been wanting a bit of this:
Camille Kathleen Waite
In an effort to combat my "wanting" I have been reminding myself of something a speaker at Time Out for Women said last year. I think it is applicable to lots of situations so I thought I would share.
The speaker, whose name I can't remember, talked about the Garden of Eden. It was a garden full of flowers trees and fruit. The Lord told Adam and Eve that they could eat freely of ALL the trees in the Garden --- ALL except for ONE. There was only ONE tree that He told them not to eat from. They could FREELY eat from ALL the others.
The speaker related this to how often we have similar circumstances in our lives. We are given SO much from the Lord and yet often there is ONE (or maybe a few or several) thing(s) that we are not able to enjoy fully here. The speakers message was to try to focus on all the trees we are able to eat from instead of focusing on the one we are forbidden.
That is easier said than done for those of us with this nature of always wanting what we can't have. But it is something I have spent the last year REALLY trying to do. And I have found much success in my efforts. I know I appreciate my living children more fully than before. And it gives me something to refocus my thoughts and my heart when the missing and wanting get too intense.
Really this life is not the time that we get to enjoy all the fruit. There must be some withheld so that we can know the bitter. And it is in the next life that we will fully appreciate the sweet that will then be ours without reservation or restriction.
