I shall not want?

Everyday I want...so many things! Not necessarily material things, though a new laptop would be right nice, and it seems the cravings for hummus and wheat thins will never cease. But most of those things that I want lie in the emotional or experiential realm...I want to hear a little one call me Mama, I want to love someone so deeply that it seems knit into my very being, I want to once again play my fiddle at the Todd General Store on a Friday night, I want to see my grandpa and stand with him in heaven before the God we both love. So many wants...so many wishes...so many tears when longing overwhealms the patience and hope that, most days, keeps me stable.

Why this longing for love and moments where all seems right? Why this longing to see those whose bodies decay and whose souls reside elsewhere? Why this overpowering desire to see a God that I simultaneously love and fear?

Perhaps its because that is what I was created for. Perhaps "want" is a product of the imperfection, brokenness, and chaos in which my world exists. I guess as a follower of the Lord, I believe that at one point this world was perfect, whole, and peaceful. Love never hurt. People didn't die. Music played on and on...it was the world at the end of fairytales we all wish for every now and again.

Is the very act of wanting evidence that we live in a world that is not the one intended for us and that perhaps the hope we have for a different world drives us to find it--to find that happy ending...King David wrote, "The Lord is my shephard, I shall not want." That does not mean stop wanting, and it does not mean that suffering is out of the question...it simply means that, eventually, wanting will end, love will make things whole again, and all will be right with the world. Maybe that is why John wrote so desperately, "Come Lord Jesus." He, too, knew what it meant to want and who could satisfy. Thankfully I am not alone. Thankfully hope exists, else all would seem lost.