what we all want

Underwater swimmingI watched a grandmother with two energetic grandchildren at the swimming pool today. She was taking care of them until their mom came home from work. I am assuming all these facts based on what I saw. These were lively beautiful kids who were young, but very competent and independent in the swimming pool.  The grandmother admonished them many times about different things. She sat in a chair watching them.  She knew them.  She loved them.  She was not delighting in them. She was a bit tired and grumpy. It was obvious even to a stranger.

I wanted to urge her to delight in her grandchildren. She didn’t understand how blessed she was to have regular close contact with them. She didn’t know how much they want someone to delight in them.

We all desire from the depths of our souls:

to be known

to be cared for

to be delighted in.

Sometimes people try to care for us, but it seems that they might not really know what we like and what we need, so their efforts aren’t always well received – it doesn’t ‘hit the spot.’

Sometimes we are known and cared for, but it seems as if these significant people doing the knowing and caring are “just putting up with us.”  They don’t really delight in who we are and who we are becoming.

Finding people who know us, care for us and delight in us can be an extremely rare experience.  It is one that some people never achieve.  Rather than looking for the people that are going to know, care and delight in us, what would happen if we became proactive about knowing, caring for and delighting in the people around us?

What are some ways you can grow in knowing more about the people in your world?

What are some ways you can care more for the people in your world?

What are some ways you can delight in the people in your world?

Perhaps if we concentrate on knowing, caring and delighting in others, we might actually find the satisfaction we were looking for all the time.

 

2 thoughts on “what we all want

  1. Your experience and insight add a lot to mine! It’s like Jesus said, “Give and it will be given to you, pressed down, shaken together and running over.”

    I’m so thrilled to know you were inspired to go fishing with your husband and that you had a really enjoyable experience! When we seek insight God has such creative ways of giving it to us!

  2. I don’t know how I happened to stumble across your blog, but I am so glad I did. I like your way of seeing and expressing things so much, that I clicked my way back to your very first post, so I can read the whole thing from the beginning.

    What you said in this post really resonates with me. A couple of weeks ago I was praying for the Lord to show me how to encourage and help my husband, who hasn’t been quite like himself since he totaled his motorcycle in which bad accident in March of last year.

    As soon as I prayed some ideas came to my mind, things like encouraging my husband to go fishing and offering to go with him, even though fishing isn’t my thing.

    Then this thought fell into my head:
    “If we live only for ourselves ~ our wants, our needs, our happiness ~ we become like stagnant ponds of water, toxic and dead inside.”

    Wow, huh?

    The next day I announced to my surprised hubby that we were going fishing. It was a beautiful day and even the rescue poodle and I had a great time, hiking around the lake and river and watching my wonderful best friend fish. Now I can’t wait to do it again!

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