Having It All

Recently, a single friend openly wished she had a husband to help with her expenses and tasks. A married person responded by listing some of the baggage a husband brings to the table. It was another example of how sometimes as women, we really want it all.

If we're single, we wonder what it would be like to be married, unless we are, in which case we long to be single sometimes. If we don't have children, we wish we did, unless we have one, in which case we want more, unless we already do, in which case we wish we had just one or none. If we have sons, we wish for daughters and vice versa. If we have curly hair, we wish for straight, unless that's what we have and have to pay for our curls. Sometimes it seems that whatever we have, we wish for that which is the opposite - not necessarily because we don't want what we have, but we want that other experience, too.

But the fact is that we can't have it all. We can't eat our cake and still have it too. Sometimes we have to make that choice and sometimes the choices are just what we get in life. And while we're thankful for whatever we have, we still wistfully wonder "what if."

But maybe by thinking about the opposite circumstance of what we have, we bridge that gap between us and those who are different. Maybe by looking at what might have been, we can more objectively see what is. And maybe by seeing our lives as they are, we can not only appreciate and be thankful for what we have, but we can understand why we are who we are. Whether we're married/single, kids/childless, curly/straight, etc, we can realize that those things make us uniquely us. Those things help define our place in this life and why we're here. Because of everything we are, we are specifically positioned to make our mark on this world, no matter how large or small we may think it is.

Then, as surely as the Earth rotates, our circumstances change. Suddenly we have that child, or become single, or lose all our hair. We reinvent ourselves and what was dissolves into what is. But we're still who we are for a reason. I think Max Lucado said it best: "God packed you on purpose for a purpose." So in the end, I guess we really do have it all, if having it all means being who we are meant to be in this world.