"What a Girl Wants" and changing, "The List"

My daughter recorded, "What a Girl Wants," not too long ago but we haven't watched it yet.
She says I've seen it already.
My other daughter told me on the phone this week, "I don't think you know what you want."
"Or maybe we just want what we can't have."

Pretty sure I know what I want.
Pretty sure I'd still like to be a super hero.

Or a pop star.
Oh, and I was wrong when I mentioned the band from the pop up underground stage at Adventureland in Des moines. They were in fact not singing, "Celebrate Good Times," by KC and the Sunshine Band.

Actually, it was, "Celebrate," by Three Dog Night. I loooove that song!
I just heard it on my tv/radio and immediately had a flashback.
The good kind.

They say there's a reason your rearview mirror is small and your windshield so much larger..... it's because we are not supposed to keep looking back at what's behind us, but only forward, to what lies ahead.

I'm really trying to not look backwards...there's too much I wish I could change.
It's not pretty.
And I was too fat.

Those were the exact words spoken during one of those ever so sweet romantic, tell all (or most anyway) moments with the one you love.

So I say, "I remember when I saw you for the first time...I looked across the dance floor and there you were. I even thought I heard a whisper say to me, "That's him, your husband."

"Get behind me Satan!" is what I should have said but I didn't know that kind of lingo back then.

"I thought you were the most handsome man I'd ever seen and was so totally drawn to you. And then we danced to Dream Weaver."

By Gary Wright.
In my world, that is some seriously incredible irony.
Either that, or God's weaving one really unbelievable story!

"What did you think when you first saw me?" I asked coyly, expecting a compliment about my beautiful blue eyes.
"I thought you were too fat and not quite pretty enough for me."

"Oh."
I am only recently learning to not ask questions, I may not want to hear the answers to.
Ugh.

But there are some things I really do want to know!
Like, "Is that true? Do I even know what I really want?"

Looking back again at 22, on our first date, I knew what I wanted.
I told my best friend Cathie on the phone.."I hope he smokes pot."
He slept through the first date.
Be careful what you wish for.

At 45 I can tell you that is no longer any where near the top of my "want" list.
It's not even on the list anymore.
Either is repetitive rejection.

Years of hearing, "You always loved me a lot more than I loved you," have made me question the validity of the,

Love Is........
poster we all had back in the 70's.

Recently, Natalie and her friends and I went to go see, "The Perks of being a Wallflower."
One of the lines in the movie has stayed in my head since.
"We settle for the love we think we deserve."
Interesting thought, isn't it?

We had a connection that ran deep. Or so I believed.
I always thought it was an extraordinary kind of love.
My mom says I don't see things as they really are and have a heart the size of Texas.

I know she's wrong.
It IS extraordinary to get left in Mexico on your pre-honeymoon and marry the person anyway.
It IS extraordinary to have your wedding ring get pawned instead of the shiny blue Strat. (that's a guitar.)
It IS extraordinary to have someone walk out not once, twice, or even three times on the lady and still love.
and forgive.

Okay, so truth be told, maybe it wasn't so lady like to try and run him over with the Volvo.
For real!
It was his own fault, of course.
He should have just taken me out for Chinese food like all the other nice church husbands were doing!!
It was Mother's Day for gosh sakes!

Yep. As a believer, I actually did that!
I reaaallly wanted Chinese food!
I think the word says something like, "Why do we get angry? Cause we don't get our way."

I can still see the look of fear on his face as he ran through the drainage ditch.
We laugh about it now.
Or I do anyway.
It takes some of the sting out of the rest of it.

Tara, my oldest daughter was having guy trouble and she asked how long I had waited for him to change. "I don't know. I lost count. 14, 15 years?"
"Wow," she said, "that is so craZy!"
"Ya think?"

When I hung up...It finally dawned on me that it wasn't so much that I wanted him to change.
Okay, maybe I wanted him to get off the couch once in a while, love holidays as much as I did and make a decision to participate in life a little...

But, it occurred to me in a flash of truth....I think what I really wanted all that time was for him to just love me as much as I loved him.

And that's probably how God feels about us.
He knows what we want.
He loves us and wants what's best for us.
Smartly, because He's God like that, sometimes he doesn't give us what we want because it's not what we really need.

Even if sometimes, because you're kind of crazy, you think what you might really want is for someone to be layed out all over the couch saying, "Hand me the remote Hamster Face."

1st Corinthians Chapter 13 says,
"Love is patient.
Love is kind.
It does not envy.
It does not boast.
It is not proud.
It does not dishonor others.
It is not self-seeking.
It keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes.
Love always perseveres."

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
1 John 4.

That's a real, "crazy little thing called love."