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I've been thinking lately about the importance and beauty of question marks.

Yes, partly because my nerdy editor self actually thinks about what my favorite punctuation de jour is (past faves have been the ellipsis and the em dash). But more because I've been thinking about how powerful the question mark can be. Lives change because of question marks. 

What do I really believe? Where is my life headed? Will you marry me?

Question marks can evoke wonder, interest, thoughtfulness, or curiosity. Or confusion, frustration, and ignorance. Question marks create invitations, which can be accepted, rejected, pondered, or ignored. The presence or absence of question marks can reveal vulnerability and security or pride and insecurity. Things hang in the balance with question marks.

For a while now, I've been trying to be more intentional in asking questions of myself and friends. Asking myself questions is something I'm pretty good at... but sometimes I'll get together with a friend for dinner or coffee, we'll chat for an hour or two, and on my way home I'll realize I didn't ask my friend any of the questions I'd hoped to ask her. Questions about her life, her feelings, her hopes. The closer the friend, the more danger there is of this happening... I'll dump my stuff on her (mostly all those questions I've been asking myself), she'll ask probing and thoughtful questions, and we'll try to come to some conclusions. Last week my friend J felt like she'd dumped on me and apologized for monopolizing our conversation, but I hadn't really thought twice about it. I loved talking about her life and thinking through things with her, so I know my friends probably feel the same when I'm the monopolizer.

But still, there's something beautiful about the times when the questions flow on both sides. Like last night, when I went to a party and met a guy who was in town for a brief visit. Even though there was a chance that we might never cross paths again after the party, we talked for quite a while, each asking about the other's life. We could have talked about the weather or music or movies, but instead we traded question marks. Those are the conversations I walk away from with a contented sigh. In those moments, question marks build friendship and connection. See? Powerful.

In the same way, the lack of question marks kills connections. I went on a date a while back, and the guy spent the whole two hours of our time at a lovely jazz bar talking about himself. Oh wait, I think he asked me one or two questions about me. But he spent the rest of the time talking about his life, his work, his accomplishments. He gave me his resume, when what I really would have been impressed with were some more question marks. (Yeah, that was the only date we went on.)

Question marks can sometimes be scary. If you're like me, you know all too well the Amelie-melt-into-a-puddle moments when you wanted to ask a special person a special question, only to totally lose your guts and walk quickly in the other direction. ("Maybe she's devising a plan." "A plan? Huh. Maybe she's a coward.") But you never know how your life might change until you put a question mark out there.

There have been seasons of my life fraught with question marks. Times when I've been unsure about God, church, career, relationships, life in general. Weeks and months where I've felt like the very fabric of my being is being unraveled by question marks. All the threads wrapping round and round the curly-cue and the dot, making such a tangle that I think I'll never be able to regain control or understanding. Sometimes the questions get answered with peace that passes understanding. Sometimes I pick at them and pick at them until they are no longer a tangled mess... they're just there, glaring at me and refusing to be transformed into periods of finality or exclamation points of celebration.

But living with question marks is what makes us human. And stronger humans, at that. With them, we have the power to invite, connect, investigate, confront, reveal. A question mark can change everything.

What will you do with a question mark today?

(Afterthought: When I was younger, I would get excited thinking about sitting down at Jesus's feet someday in Heaven with my list of unanswered questions like, 'What was up with the dinosaurs?' But the older I get, the more comfort and joy I find in the idea that all our questions won't matter a diddly-flip once we're in His presence. Question marks will pale in comparison then.)