April 30, 2007: Picture Not-So-Perfect

Why is it that a picture can stir so much emotion within you? A photograph of a particular person can only paint an external silhouette of someone. However, there within the colors, shades, lines, curves, and tints, there is something deeper that the picture elicits. Today this deeper connection embedded within a picture is what elicited in me a sense of unabating pain. Working diligently on the ministry, something that I have had a hard time doing for the past month, I was perusing a book when I unexpectedly saw a picture of him. In the picture, in one of his favorite shirts, he is smiling coyly. The same smile he had given me so many times in the past. What is behind that smile? Better stated...what do I see in and behind that smile that makes me ache for him and pull away from him?

Why do women subject themselves to something that is not good for them? How come we either become complacent with what we can get or some how get ourselves into relationships that hurt us in the long run? As my best friend asked me yesterday, why do I allow myself to fall into a "battered woman's" mentality...stating that "he's a good guy, but..." Why do we make ourselves available to men who are unavailable? Is this a defense mechanism to unconsciously protect ourselves from something or is it merely a pattern because the closest men in our lives are emotionally unavailable? In my life every time I think the relationship picture is right it seems to either not fit quite right or the picture shatters my heart.