Does Satisfaction Depend On Another Person?

MAKING friends and dating can be very frustrating at times. It seems that we have to be in the right place at the right time and to attract others to us--by looks, personality, or status. I used to spend a lot of time worrying about how to make other people like me. But there's a better way. Here's how I learned about it.

My boyfriend had just broken up with me, and I was feeling very depressed and lonely. Up until then my relationships had been very emotional and always a struggle. I was always waiting for boyfriends to call. If they didn't call, I'd be anxiously trying to get a date. And if I didn't have a date, I felt as if the world might as well end!

During this period of feeling low after my boyfriend and I broke up, I visited a friend of mine at her college one weekend. While I was visiting, there was a dance. I went and was waiting for someone to ask me to dance, when I thought of a line from a poem by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. She writes, ``Who doth His will--His likeness still-- / Is satisfied'' (Poems, p. 79).

Each of us, I knew, is God's likeness, created by Him. Even though I'd heard this poem a lot--it's set to music and sung as a hymn in my church--this time it meant something new to me. It dawned on me that at that very moment, as God's perfect likeness, I was already enjoying all the tenderness, love, and affection I could ever want, from God. The neat thing about knowing this was that I felt so joyful and confident that I wasn't worried about what was going on around me.

God gives us all good. We are completely dependent on Him, not on another person. I didn't have to figure out how, when, or with whom I would see companionship in my experience--or even whom I would dance with that night. My part was to rejoice in the truth that I was already satisfied as God's likeness, and to keep busy expressing all of God's wonderful qualities. I wasn't waiting for something to happen; something was already going on! The next thing I knew, boys started asking me to dance. I had a super time that night.

From that time on I experienced wonderful companionship-- wholesome friendships with both men and women. And there's never been any shortage of friends, either. Also, I've gained a more reasonable perspective on things like personality and status.

I once heard the advice that when you're feeling the need for companionship, you should make a list of the qualities you desire in a companion--and then practice expressing those qualities yourself! I could see from my experience that night at the dance how this would be a practical way of seeing your own completeness as God's child. And you'd be proving that you already have those qualities in your life, so you wouldn't feel you had to go frantically looking for them in someone else! It's not hard to see how individuals who appreciate and express the same qualities would soon be attracted to you, is it?

The Psalmist says of God: ``For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness'' (Psalms 107:9). I certainly found out how we can always feel content, whether we are married or single. You can, too, because God is always giving us all good. We're His likeness, and expressing His qualities is what really satisfies.

BIBLE VERSE Praise waiteth for thee,O God, in Sion . . . .Blessed is the manwhom thou choosest,and causest to approachunto thee,that he may dwell in thy courts:we shall be satisfiedwith the goodnessof thy house,even of thy holy temple.

Psalms 65:1, 4