Need

I was thinking tonight about how very much I need my God. Intellectually, I know that he is love and grace, peace and hope, joy and mercy. I know that he is my most basic need. In one sense, there are many things here on earth that I really do need. But I know that in the end, he is the only thing I really, truly need.

I need him so much. I need him more than I need a friend or lover. I need him more than a good job or a comfortable home. I need him more than a cozy bed and nice clothes, more than a car that works or a reliable cell phone. I need him more than wonderfully distracting books, TV shows, and films. I need him - only him.

But I think that actually live that, fully believing it, will be a life-long pursuit. I spend so much of my fleeting life substituting one person or thing or habit for him. But maybe that’s what this life is all about: learning to need him. Maybe I’ll never really get it right. I’m pretty sure I won’t ever get it all straight during this life, and it’s very possible that I will never fully realize that knowing him and being loved by him is enough. And all too soon this will all be over. And I’ll look into his eyes, and he’ll smile and remind me again that he really is all I need, that he really is enough. And it won’t be too late.

remember when

For me, changes in weather often spark strong feelings of nostalgia. The past two days have been the first truly spring-like days around here, and with the (relative) warmth and sunshine has come these random pangs of what I can only call nostalgia.

Nostalgia never ceases to intrigue me. I have a love-hate relationship with this bizarre phenomenon. On the one hand, I relish the feeling of re- experiencing or even simply recalling good from the past. On the other, nostalgia carries with it a sense of something lost. For me, nostalgia is most often a barely tangible twitch of longing for some good moment from the past. These are not usually well-defined moments. In fact, they may never have actually happened. I will simply feel a breeze or smell that springy wet-earth smell or the scent of burning leaves in autumn, and that sensory trigger creates a simultaneously satisfying and dissatisfying memory. I am both happy that I was once so happy and a little sad that things never seem quite as good now as I think they once were. (This happens a lot at Christmastime.)

Today, however, I recognized something new. I think that I sometimes have feelings of nostalgia directed toward the future. Today, while I was searching for missing books, I experienced the most overwhelming feeling of delight and longing for that time I took my boys trick-or-treating. It took me about 3 seconds (which is really longer than it sounds) to realize that I don't have children. I was feeling a sentimental desire to relive something that I may someday live but have certainly never lived up to this point.

Before I go on I should mention that I have no idea where trick-or-treating came from. I know it's spring, not fall. I guess the mind works in mysterious ways.

Anyway, this got me thinking, and I'm pretty sure that I've felt this before. I feel definite pangs of nostalgia over things like driving my kids to a soccer game or sitting by the lake reading with my spouse. And I know that you're probably thinking this sounds a lot like just wistfully imagining future possibilities. But it's different. It carries the same complicated, paradoxical emotions that come with typical past-oriented nostalgia. It's as if something triggered longing for a future that cannot ever come to pass or one that might but probably won't.

I honestly have no idea what to think of this. I'm just observing my experience. I'm a little curious whether anyone else has ever encountered such a feeling. But mostly I am just musing.

{Totally unrelated side note: Some one just handed me a pair of scissors blade first. I thought every one learned in preschool that you don't hand anything blade first; apparently not.}