This evening I find myself craving pizza. I remember back to all the pizza-like concoctions I’ve eaten as a kid. The pizza casserole, which coincidentally is in the Manna: LCF style cookbook. The tiny microwavable pizzas that I regularly took to school when I was in 7th grade. To be fair, I ate it for a snack after chapel and mooched off almost every classmate I had. The precursor to Totinos or D journos that took 660 seconds too long in the oven, which was too slow in reaching the prescribed temperature anyway. I’m pretty certain I ate at least 2 of those at a time then as I do now.
The best version of the pizza is the recipe my grandma made almost every time we went up to the farm back when I was little. They were made with homemade dough and fresh or frozen veggies, but always with black olives. Hot out of the oven and the mounds of melted cheese, they were what I’m absolutely certain ambrosia tasted like, if one disregards all the talk that ambrosia tastes like honey.
Yet today, that memory can do nothing for my craving, save perhaps make it sharper. In my current state, I am left with limited options but no amount of Vegetable Beef soup or Peanut Butter and Jelly will satiate this, no matter whether I manage to satisfy my hunger or not. I don’t see how someone could see that I’ve written this without inferring that I will arrive at some point, which I will do now.
Do we ever stop to think about what we crave spiritually? Are we trying to fulfill that craving with something that we aren’t craving? Are we bankrupting ourselves trying to find that satisfaction? Jesus said coming to Him causes hunger to be satisfied and believing in Him quenches thirst. How could He say that if He wasn’t what we craved or were thirsty for? So then, will you, will I, come to Him and let Him satisfy our longing souls?