I Don't Know What Now.

I'm back at school tonight. Being an RA has it's perks (like half off room and board), but the catch is you have to come back a week early. I walked into my room and barely recognized it since I rearranged it the day I left for home. Three words scratched on my chalk board glare at me: "So...what now".

I remember writing them before I left. I knew break would challenge me and I wanted to ask myself what I was going to do with the challenge.

But, see, I don't know. I don't know what now.

Today my dear friend Bethany asked me to be in her wedding in September, and I am elated to be a part of her big day, not to mention her future. But there's something gnawing at me, and I can't quite put words to it. It was in the throat when I left her room for my own. I saw it in Grace's eyes when we had our "sister date", and she told me if she could change anything about herself it would be her wetting the bed habit. It was in Alissa's hollow laugh when we read past years' time capsules; her "One goal for 2004" was "to loose 20 pounds". She was only eleven. And it's here now, as I sit along in my room on an empty floor.

Yes, I think it's longing again. Hunger. A grief, if you will, over things not as they should be. Don't read me wrong, please. I don't mean that I should be fulfilled, that Grace should stop wetting the bed or that Alissa should have different aims. I'm saying something deep within us isn't right, isn't satisfied and hungers. Like we're famished from a long hike and instead of waiting until we get to the car and can eat a granola bar, we drop to our knees and begin chewing gravel. Because we just couldn't imagine anything much better. And if we could, it is too far away.

Longing can be a terrible beast. It awakens. It stirs. It provokes.

But the danger in avoiding longing is deadlier still. It is to be content. It is to be satisfied with the gravel of life and offer it on a platter to our guest. Longing may awaken to pain, but contentment sleeps unsafe.