If only…
***I think someone needs to read this rerun. I felt led to post it and there’s a great shoutout at the end.
If only…
Another blogpost actually triggered this post.
One of my very favorite decorating/DIY bloggers is KariAnne Wood on her site Thistlewood Farms. Love her site. Her house. Her upbeat attitude. Her red lipstick!
In one of her recent blogposts, she wrote about the “extremely premature and fetal distress” of the early birth of her twin girls, who are now teenagers. She wrote…
“If only.
If only I had known in the middle of the darkest hour the joy that was waiting just around the corner.”
Oh, how I love that. That ignited the spark!
If you’ve never watched the movie You’ve Got Mail, you’ve missed it. I started to write a synopsis of the movie, but if you haven’t seen it, I decided not to spoil it for you. Just watch it! It’s one of my favorites.
Tom Hanks character Joe Fox and Meg Ryan’s character Kathleen Kelly have met online in a chatroom: he known only as NY152 and she as Shopgirl. This conversation takes place close to the end of the movie. By now, they have met and Joe has fallen in love with Kathleen and she with him, though she doesn’t yet realize his true identity as he has hers.
The conversation goes like this:
Joe: You know, sometimes I wonder…
Kathleen: What?
Joe: Well… if I hadn’t been Fox Books and you hadn’t been The Shop Around the Corner, and you and I had just, well, met…
Kathleen: I know.
Joe: Yeah. I would have asked for your number, and I wouldn’t have been able to wait twenty-four hours before calling you and saying, “Hey, how about… oh, how about some coffee or, you know, drinks or dinner or a movie…(pause)…for as long as we both shall live?”
Kathleen: Joe…
Joe: And you and I would have never been at war. And the only thing we’d fight about would be which video to rent on a Saturday night.
Kathleen: Well, who fights about that?
Joe: Well, some people. Not us.
Kathleen: We would never.
Joe: If only.
If only…
We have those if only moments, don’t we? Usually, we mumble hindsights…if only I hadn’t done this or if only I hadn’t done that. Or if only that wouldn’t have happened. Or if only I could have…
Oh, we can fill an ocean’s worth of if onlys! But do we have more rearview-mirror-regrets like Joe and Kathleen or more foggy-windshield-experiences like KariAnne, not knowing the awesomeness to come?
And that’s how I read KariAnne’s comment. Not as a boo-hoo-why-didn’t-I-know kind of thing but as an ooo-what’s-waiting-for-me kind of thing. An opportunity to expect. How many opportunities to expect goodness, joy, and blessings pass us by every day?
So, what if we embraced the if onlys as a chance for positive possibilities? If only…
* we would expect the best of others…
* we had a positive attitude instead of a negative one…
* we praised God rather than grumbled and complained…
* we would expect the next great thing just around the corner…
…then, how would our lives change? What would happen to our circumstances? To our attitude?
Rather than doom and gloom, we would experience excitement and enjoyment. Say, like having the great expectation of our Lord’s return?
“If only I had known in the middle of the darkest hour the joy that was waiting just around the corner.”
How many positive if onlys can you think of?
“Now we live with great expectation.”
1 Peter 1:3b NLT
May all your if onlys be positive blessings…Lynn
***KariAnne has a new book out, You’ve Got This (Because God’s Got You): 52 Devotions to Uplift and Encourage. I’ve read portions and it’s great! You will love it. She’s an excellent storyteller. You can pick up her book at…
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