Be Careful What You Wish For..

Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.

I never understood this saying.  Why would you ask for something that you did not actually want?  Again, the truth in this saying is something I have learned the hard way.

Several summers ago I attended a church meeting in Oklahoma City.  Several girls from my home congregation were put in the same house.  Being teenage girls and all, we did what you would expect us to do.  We watched chick-flicks and ate ice cream.  I cannot recall the movie we watched, but I do remember an important character in the movie passed away. The movie was pretty sad.  All the girls were crying except me.  Sure, the death in the movie was unfortunate and all, but it did not make me cry. I remember Bayleigh, a dear friend of mine, looking over at me after she noticed my tearless eyes.  She had a horrified look on her face and asked me, “Don’t you have a heart? Goodness, Christine. You must be heartless” 

Although I know she did not mean harm by it, these words have always stuck with me.  She was right, in a way.  I had trouble relating to people. I had no idea what they were going through.  I have had a relatively easy life; I have never lost anyone close to me. Emotionally easy life, you see. After Bayleigh helped me come to this realization, I began to pray.  I prayed that God would give me the skill of empathy.  I prayed so hard and long.  I asked for him to let me not only know but feel what people were going through. I wanted, no, I needed to relate to people.  My mind could not comprehend the pain of loss.  I asked the Lord to let me experience loss. I remember praying for so extensively and intensely that I ended up in frustrated tears.  I tried so hard to understand.  Finally, I stopped asking.

God works in mysterious ways, folks.

During March of my junior year of high school, my uncle passed away.  We arrived to the hospital about 20 or so minutes after he passed.  He was still in his hospital bed when we arrived, and we were in there with him 5 minutes before a nurse came in the room to tell us he did not make it.  The pain was hard to deal with, but I asked for it.

The next loss that impacted my life happened in October.  M, as I called him in my previous blog post, was a friend of mine.  If you would like to know about some of the heartache I felt after his passing, I do encourage you to read my previous blog post.  For the sake of not being to redundant, I will not recall my pain in this post.

My point is that I have learned a great lesson.  I need to be careful what I wish for, because I just might get it.  The cost of want is high.  I realize this now.