Half.

We're not meant to be half. One of the worst sayings in the world is, "you complete me." Thanks a lot Jerry McGuire... and just so you know...no one can complete you. You're meant to be whole on your own. I believe everyone wants to be whole. No one wants to just be a half, or be just enough, or 2/3 complete.

I don't think everyone desires happiness, I think everyone desires wholeness.

I just finished reading the book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, by Barbara Brown Taylor and it's a great read. [I highly recommend all of her books] Taylor helps rewrite the narrative around darkness and our misconceptions and tendency to only associate what is good with light. She encourages readers to see what God could be teaching you "in the dark."

You can't have dark without light and light without dark. They're half of a whole. You need one and the other. You may not always want to acknowledge the wholeness that comes when there's light and dark because of fear or anxiety or uncertainty, but it's true.

Too often we try to be a half. We try to only accept the good. We try to only feel the happy things and push away the sadness, the anger or the unhappiness. We ignore that shadow side of ourself because maybe we don't want to deal with it or maybe because we were told it wasn't okay to have it. But, when we refuse to acknowledge that the hard times are just as much a part of us as the good times or don't take the time to realize that the sadness we feel is just as important as the happiness, we aren't living in wholeness. [Sidenote: Please watch Inside Out for further evidence of why this is important]

Barbara Brown Taylor has this to say:

To be human is to live by sunlight and moonlight, with anxiety and delight, admitting limits and transcending them, falling down and rising up. To want a life with only half of these things in it is to want half a life, shutting the other half away where it will not interfere with one's bright fantasies of the way things ought to be.

To be whole we have to accept the sunlight and the moonlight, the anxiety and delight, the light and the dark. To be human is to realize we can both fail and succeed, we can be happy and sad, and we can have limits and transcend them.

To be human isn't to be half...it's to be whole. And to be whole isn't about just "good" things or just "light" things...it's accepting all of who we are, all of what we've experienced and remembering that we live by both the sunlight and the moonlight.

 

Photo courtesy of pxleyes.com

Out of Sorts.

Have you ever felt like you had it all figured out and then you didn't? Maybe that you knew exactly what you believed about that one thing and then you realized, wait, maybe I don't know what I think? Or that at one time the world was really black and white and everything you believed made sense...and then it didn't? Have you had doubts, felt more like you're wandering in the wilderness every Sunday morning rather than sitting in that comfortable church pew? My answers to all these questions? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. My faith has always been a part of who I am, but it has changed and evolved over the years. Sometimes it has made sense to me, other times it hasn't. Sometimes I welcomed the changes and sorting out with open arms and sometimes I clenched my fists and fought against the feeling that I need to let go of these ideas that I always thought were right. Sometimes I felt really alone, other times I felt like just when I thought it was just me out here wandering, I would see Jesus and a friend would come alongside me too. In her new book, Out of Sorts, Sarah Bessey is that friend.

Sarah Bessey is one of my most favorite authors and her new book did not disappoint. I think every other line is underlined and I've lost count of the number of times "yes!", "amen", and "me too" fill the margins. It's packed full of so much truth. It's her story of how her faith has evolved and how she has made peace with that, but through her story you are confronted with so much truth. Truth that makes you dig deep, that makes you reflect on your own story. Her words remind us that we're not alone and that God is oh so present in the sorting out. I see my story in her story.

It's hard for me to articulate all the goodness found within Sarah's writing so I think I'll have to do a series of posts about it, but whether she's writing about the Kingdom of God, community and friendship or the Church, her words drip with truth, life and light. It's clear her writing is Spirit led and this writing is necessary and important to us all. It made me feel less alone and has helped me make peace with my evolving faith and I think it will for you too.  Sarah explains what the book is about, "Really, it's a book about not being afraid. This is my way of leaving the light on for the ones who are wandering."

Sarah also says, "There are many of us out here sorting, I think. This might be a small candle, but I'll set mine on the lamp stand and you can set yours there too --- and maybe our glow will light the path of others." So join us on this lighted path so you can join your candles with ours and we can remember that we're not on this journey alone.

{I was lucky enough to be on the launch team for Out of Sorts, which means I received an advance copy of the book in order to review it and spread the word about it. I didn't receive any compensation for this, just the benefit of reading it so I can tell everyone how great it is and that you should buy it! You can find it on Amazon here.}

I was so excited to get the book! Seriously...go get your copy!!!

And just in case you need any more reason to love the book, there are the cutest printables with some of the themes from the book that you can find here.