Ten women in a circle. And me. Here was the question. Two actually.
What do women want?
What do women need?
No one had to think about it.
It was as though we had rehearsed this previously.
They piled…I compiled.
“I want…shoes, silk pajamas, new lingerie, a car, a trip to the Caribbean, nice food, so many swim suits that it would be impossible to choose which one to wear, pedicures, manicures, massages, a hard bed with soft pillows, ten pairs of tennis shoes, real diamond earrings, and the most expensive pair of shoes on Rodeo Drive.”
We all each just looked at each other for a moment.
One of the women said, “I don’t think I have ever expressed that to anyone before.”
Another chimed in, “Make that car…a white BMW with tan interior.”
I asked the group if any one of them had ever expressed the things they wanted to someone else.
I was the first, and honored to be the recipient of these first expressions.
We all took a collective breath.
And then I asked, “What do you need?”
There was a momentary silence as though their answers this time were not from the mind, but from the heart.
A much deeper place.
Finally, after an awkward silence, one voice spoke.
In a somber delivery, that felt like it had been suppressed for years, she said, “I love you. I need to hear the words, I love you.”
She looked away from the group, and almost trance like continued, “I love you not for your beauty or what you can do for me, but because I can’t imagine life without you. If I had to live without you, I could, but I do not want to, for my life would lack passion, zeal and meaning. I need to hear someone say, ‘You are exquisite.’ I need someone to say to me that, ‘You are the most beautiful woman in this room and I am the envy of every man.’ That is what I need.”
No one said a word.
No one moved.
We must have all sat in silence for at least three minutes, which seemed like forever.
Then I slowly got up from my chair, and without saying anything, or without looking at any one of them, quietly walked away.
It was one of the most awe inspiring moments I have ever experienced.
It moved me deeply.
To the point, where I began to research the topic of, “What I want and what I need.”
One of my favorite philosophers, Augustine, wrote of it this way, in his Confessions.
“We pray, for what we want, yet Truth Himself has said, “Your Father knows what is needful for you before you ask Him.”
The writer James stated it in this manner.
“You want what you don’t have, so you kill to get it. You long for what others have, and can’t afford it, so you start a fight to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. And even when you do ask God you don’t get it because you whole aim is wrong — you want only what will give you pleasure.”
We each are quick to say what we want.
And that is okay.
But it is God’s desire to give to us what we need.
Tell God what you want and then watch as He gives you what you need.
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