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Friday, September 12, 2008

I Wish I Had...

Do you ever wish you had something you don't have?


Gottcha! That was a rhetorical question! Of course. We all do.


I wanted to share with you how I sometimes find those things in my life. Because sometimes we actually HAVE what we wished for and we just don't know it. Sound unbelievable? How could I be so dense that I am not seeing I have what I wish for? Read on...


I have been envying every playhouse I saw since the kids were 3 (they are 9-13 right now). When they had a drawing for playhouses at the local mall I put our names in. I talked to a friend about helping me build one, I shopped around for playhouses to purchase and I even purchased a book on how to build your own playhouse. Then one day I looked out of my window and I saw my child and her friend - 9 and 10 years old - playing in our Gazebo which they have made into a playhouse and I realized - I have something better! The Gazebo allows them to be outdoors AND in their house, they can't grow out of it because it fits adults as well as children, I can visit them in their playhouse and when they say "look at the great house we made today" I can actually step in and visit. I am just realizing that my obsession with having a playhouse has blinded me to the joy and wonder of the gazebo I have. It took the creative energies of a 9-year-old girl and her friend to open my eyes up to the possibilities.


I wish I had a large garden to feed our family. I could have one but I didn't take the time to create a large garden this year. So it WAS a choice I made. But I still wish I had one. However, the past month we have been busy wildcrafting in our yard and on the nature trail near our house and I realized that the amount of harvest we have readily available to us is quite large and what makes it even better is that we didn't have to do any work at all to get it - we didn't plant anything or weed any garden or make any effort at all. All we did was let our yard grow wild, and take walks on the nature trail and so far our harvest this year has included: grapes, blackberries, mint, garlic, apples, elderberries (for cooking into syrup), raspberries, echinacea, various decorative flowers, burr oak acorns for crafting and much more. As I looked at this abundance of harvest on our kitchen counter this week I realized that we DO have a garden to feed our family. It just came in a different costume.


That happens frequently. Often I will wish for something and wonder why my wishes are not coming true...only to realize later that they HAVE come true...I just didn't SEE them because I had an image in my head instead of an idea.


Take a few moments to look at your "wish" list right now. How many things on that list do you already have? To figure this out look to the IDEA and the REASONS behind your wish list instead of the image.


Why did I want a playhouse? So the kids can have a space of their own to play "house" and to have clubs and club meetings and invite friends over to. I did not really want the IMAGE of the pink-painted custom-roof ruffly-curtains playhouse I was dreaming of. I wanted the idea.


Why did I want a garden? Because I love the idea of the children being connected to nature in that way and seeing how nature can nurture us and we can live off the land and to be able to enjoy natural foods from around us. I did not really want the IMAGE of a square garden with a fence and nice rows of carrots. I wanted the idea.


Please take time to share if you discover anything in your own life.


And take time every few weeks to go through this exercise. Learning to LOOK for these things has helped me immensely in my life.


Blessings & Health,

Kristie


1 comments:

Leilani said...

Truer words were never spoken. I have a policy when I find myself thinking I need something that I don't have - I wait. I usually don't have to wait long, in a day or two I usually find that I had what I was thinking I needed- or in the case of something that I cannot afford I can be resourceful. Every time I am more satisfied with what I already had, esp. if I had to "think outside the box" to "get" it (or realize I already had it).