sometimes you find / You get what you need

So, I was watching Sex and the City on TBS (I know, but really I just watch because it reminds me of being single and fabulous in New York City, if by single and fabulous you mean married at twenty and secretary of the Economics Department).

And the thing about that show is that none of the four women gets the kind of life she wants. Charlotte wants a baby, desperately, and gets infertility and a weird first husband. Carrie wants to get married (or at least figure out Mr. Big) and gets a swingy single life and a successful column. Miranda wants her attorney career and gets a baby. Samantha is the original cougar, of course, and seems pretty content, but she gets breast cancer (and a constant Smith, which is a pretty nice consolation).

And yet. I think the point of the show is that not getting what you want is okay. Or not getting it the way you thought you wanted — the way you thought it was supposed to be — that might be even better.

It never feels better right then. I can sit in my comfortable (modest) house with my husband who is loyal and my daughters who are of my womb, and say it might be better, but that doesn’t help my sister whose husband was not loyal or my brother who yearns for a child of his own.

I can tell you that I didn’t know that this was what I wanted (of course I wanted a loyal husband if I was going to have any kind of husband, but the kid part, the in-charge-of-bodily-functions-and-tantrums part, I didn’t know that that would be better than what I thought I wanted). And I can assure you that I know how lucky I am, that I pray (when I pray) – grateful for these daughters and this husband.

It’s a hard line to write — not wanting to gloat, I make sure to tell the things that are petty annoyances about them, but that sounds ungrateful so I confess that they are magnificent and that that is to God’s credit but I sound like I’m gloating again, but I know (it must be obvious), that I do not deserve them, and — instead of getting what I wanted or thought I wanted, or — even more – what I deserved,

I got much more.

And all I can say to my sister and to my brother is that if God loves me enough to give me better than what I deserve, then as sure as snot He will give to them even better some time too.

In Sex and the City, Charlotte adopts a baby from China and Miranda balances motherhood with career and Samantha enjoys Smith and Carrie gets Mr. Big.

None of those paths may be right for anyone else. Part of the whole point is that no path (or end desire) is that simple — and I also think God wants us to do all we can to get the life that we want, if what we want is something we know He wants for us (eventually).

So my sister doesn’t give up on dating, and my brother doesn’t give up on having a child. 

Mr. Bennet’s colleague and his wife are trying to adopt. Because they want a child, too, and as Maria quoted the Reverend Mother — When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window. I think adoption is one big window, and I wanted to pass along their information in case you know anyone who knows anyone who wants to give a baby a good home.

I know these people. I know a child given to them will be cherished and loved. I honestly don’t even understand how adoption works, how all the parents involved open their hearts enough to make it work, but one thing I hear over and over is that it always seems meant. The children that are placed with parents always seem, to those parents, to be the children God intended for them to have. I have no idea how that works, but I’m grateful that it does, and I hope that Ben and Michelle find their child soon.

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