My Restless Thoughts

Each year as spring pops up and reminds me of the joy of sunshine and frolicking outdoors, I am also always hit with feelings of wanderlust and restlessness.  I want to get out of my current rut and travel- to see the great world, to meet the amazing people, and to be more than the one I am right now.  

It is these restless thoughts that I have to push aside whenever I'm asked how I'm doing, how I'm liking my job, how our new house is.  Because everything is really good.  And yet...the restlessness.  I'm ashamed that in all this goodness I should feel restless and want more.  That I should feel inside me the echo of all the dreams that have not grown real.  That I should wonder what if...What if I had become a missionary?  What if I had stayed a teacher?  What if I had studied law/medicine/politics/acting?  

Spring, for some reason, reminds me of the many paths that I have not taken.  And my mind wriggles like a puppy wanting to sniff each one out and know it.  

The psalm I wrote about last time- psalm 139- is not only about being fearfully and wonderfully made...it also ends with these two verses:

"Search me out, O God,
and know my heart;
try me 
and know my restless thoughts.

Look well
whether there be 
any wickedness in me
and lead me in the way
that is everlasting."

Try me and know my restless thoughts.  Look well at me.  Know me.  

I've been reading Loni Collins Pratt's book Radical Hospitality lately and recently came across this passage:

[A waitress took the order of a couple and then turned to their 4 year old son]
"I want a hot dog," he started.  His parents barked in union "No hot dog!"  The mother scowled at the boy, who fell silent, and said, "Bring him the vegetable and grilled chicken, milk and..."

The waitress ignored the parents as she looked directly at the boy.  "What do you want on your hot dog?"

The amazed child said, "Lots of ketchup, and a pickle, too.  And could you bring some milk?"

"Coming up," she said and turned from the table, never even looking at the stunned parents.  The boy watched her depart with astonished delight and then said to his dismayed parents, "You know what?  She thinks I'm real!  She thinks I'm real!"

That's how you feel when someone listens to you: Real. (pg 365-366)

I think it is the feeling of realness before God that struck me in this psalm.  Search me... and know my restless thoughts.  This psalm reminds me that God listens and knows all that is in me.  All my joys and sorrows, my restless wonder and my longing to wander.  God sees the goodness and the wickedness, and still continues to lead me.  God knows who I am and all the paths I hold within me.  And God sees me, restlessness and all, and says "This is my beloved child."  And I am known.  And I am real.