This morning, a young lady I recently met at a youth conference (Grand Assembly) posted this:
“A wise girl kisses but doesn’t love, listens but doesn’t believe, and leaves before she is left.”
I don't know this young lady well as she was visiting Oklahoma from Illinois for just a brief weekend, so I don't know what life experiences prompted her to share that. My first thought upon reading it was “Why the heck didn’t I live my life that way at 16? (Or even 20?) I could have saved myself a lot of grief. But the more I thought about it (and yes, I can overthink even the smallest posts on Facebook if I let myself), the more I realized that I wasn’t really sorry for any of my teenaged (or early twenty-something) mistakes because each one taught me something, changed me a little bit, and made me who I am now.
Later today, another friend of mine posted quite a different quote on Facebook. I've known this friend for quite a bit longer and I know she is posting this as a woman in her 60’s who has been a mother, and now a grandmother. Who has struggled with health issues. Who has buried a teenaged nephew, her husband, and most recently her brother. She, who has had her heart broken many times over life's events might also advise caution in giving your heart away. But she didn't. Instead, she posted this:
“The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief. But the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love” ~ Hilary Stanton Zunin
And I smiled to myself and said, “Now that’s more like it!
1 comment:
I like the second quote better. The first one I didn't like at all. It felt too contrived. I don't want my daughter kissing but not loving or listening but not believing. And who would she believe? Some man? The media? Her own fickle emotions? I hope she'll be grounded enough in her faith by then to know who she is. Then again, I have a hard time with who I am so I had better shut up now!
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