As a young girl, Christmas was sheer magic. One year, a very long time ago, a few months before the holidays, I saw a commercial. We did not have a television in our home. I must have been at a relative or a friend’s house, but I vividly remember seeing a commercial of the very thing that would fill the hole in my heart and that would make me forever happy and perfect. A Poppel. A plush little toy that would instantly transform into a ball…or so they did on the commercial. With a fun little song, this thing transformed from a stuffed animal into a plush ball back and forth, back and forth and the world was just as it should be. And I wanted one.
I dreamed of it day after day and I counted down the days until Christmas…until it was Christmas morning and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. My life was about to be completely meaningful and perfect and I would never want anything else ever again.
Well, something happened that was not a habit growing up in a household with eight children. I FINALLY opened a package that contained all my hopes and my dreams in that one Christmas present. Not only did I get one Poppel, I GOT TWO!
But because you have a very similar story to mine, you already know the ending. That thing just didn’t work like it had on the commercial. It took every muscle in my little girl body to transform that animal into a plush ball …and it was still never perfectly round. And it just didn’t pop out quite like it had on the television to that fun little song. And I never told my parents (until they are probably reading it here) but that thing just did not fulfill me like it had promised to.
“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exist. A baby feels hunger. Well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim. Well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire. Well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably, earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.” – CS Lewis
Daily, hourly, by the minute, I have these desires. I want my world to be perfectly clean. I want my husband to walk through the door with fresh flowers and a surprise date. I long to look strikingly gorgeous every single time I peek into the mirror. I want my daughter to always be polite and over succeed at every single thing she attempts. I want to turn on the nightly news and hear the report that ISIS is forever gone and there are too many wonderful things happening to ever report. I WANT ME AND ALL THINGS AROUND ME TO BE PERFECT!
Here. It never can be. But I do believe that perfect does exist.
According to covenanteyes.com, 68% of men view porn at least once a week. A desire being fed by an empty substitute with detrimental consequences. There is a real body to love. Caroline, there is a place that is perfect. We were not made for this world. It is a desperate and empty search to try and find that completeness here on earth. We were made with desires and longings that only a perfect God can fill and one day, those that turn to him, will experience all our desires met in complete perfection.
I remember that empty ‘what now?’ feeling a day or two after Christmas, when the novelty had worn off… and more recently, my nephew crying on Christmas night because there were no more presents to open. With childhood experiences like these, it’s amazing we don’t learn sooner that material things don’t satisfy for long!
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So true! We humans just move on to the next thing, the bigger and better, and it does not fulfill just like the thing before did not. I still fail daily, but I am beginning to get it just a little bit: God is the only thing that can fill this hole.
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Beautifully argued and one of the best things I have read on the topic of the religious impulse.
Thank you and God bless!
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THANK YOU. happy reading
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“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
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Amen! ❤️ the quote!
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U girls play mind games so much that it makes guys feel porn is better than to deal with a girls madness and drama
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Oh please do not settle! While this article is not directly about pornography – I used the term to mean something artificial (this world) and not comparing to the real thing (God), there is still a very real battle in the issue of pornography.
I do realize that love is hard, but hey, that is love. Girls are far from perfect, but hey, let’s face it, neither are guys. While I would like to preface that not all girls are the same and some girls despise the drama just as much as the male species. Chose the right girl. A screen is not a relationship. Hey, let’s face it, it is not even sex and it is a sad replacement. I think you know all that, I just got carried away on an issue.
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I am to girls drama makes guys look to other ways of happiness because girls just aren’t worth it not this generation of girls anyway
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Everyone matters. Everything we do, say or don’t matters. We are all God’s children who have lost our way and search for anything to fill the emptiness.
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I agree but I think more men are reaching for other things to fill the emptiness because we are realizing girls just don’t and they aren’t worth trying
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Amen to that!
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I was an only child growing up. I had to play rock ’em sock ’em robots and SSP smash up derby cars by myself. No easy task. :o)
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Correction: I had classy crashers…same thing as smash up derby, except it was the world’s most expensive cars crashing together.
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Ha!
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Love the memory of classic toys!
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