A Bittersweet Season

I have never really liked the word "bittersweet." To me, it's a word thrown around when people don't know how they feel and things are changing... things are always just bittersweet.

What does that even mean? 

In my black and white, reduce everything to a formula, and "let's call it like it is" mantra, things should be either bitter or sweet. Never both.

And if things are going to be bittersweet, for me it's going to look a lot more like this: bitterSWEET.

Highlight the sweetness, and hope that the bitterness just disappears.

The past few weeks have been full of sweetness. Spring semester is made for sweetness and being a senior is made for sweetness. It's in the blooming flowers, the welcoming of shorts weather, the senior events, and the ushering in of summer.

Delighting in the small and beautiful things has been easy recently. There have been... dinner parties ... coffee dates ... house photo shoots ... nightly walks around campus ... car jam sessions with the windows down ... concerts ... twinkle lights ... bonfires ... lake trips ... pancake nights ... climbing the bell tower ... ice cream adventures ... arboretum relaxing ... beach trips ... spontaneous outings ... kitchen dance parties ... and so many other truly wonderful things.

And I have been with some of the most delightful people... I live with seven of the most inspiring ladies who love Jesus and are some of the best people to spend time with. I lead Young Life alongside eight awesome people who are passionate about the ministry and who make my day each and every time I see them. I have a mentor who is honest, understands my love for rules, and who is constantly challenging me. I hang out with really wonderful high schoolers, who teach me something every time I spend time with them. And on top of all that, I have so many friends that live all over the country (and a few of them all over the world) who I adore and who love me so well.

By the sounds of that, I have it all. I am beyond blessed. I know that I do not deserve any of that.

And recently, I have been clinging and holding on to the sweetness like never before. I am grasping at all of the goodness that I possibly can, because I am afraid of the bitterness and twinge of sadness that hides beneath it all.

Underneath all of those delightful, Instagram worthy things, there is a bitterness, a confusion, and a sadness.

Those feelings have come from a multitude of different things that have happened in my life, in my loved one's lives, and in the world over the past few months.

a really broken relationship ... the haunting of May 13, the day after graduation ... attempting to uproot some seriously deep-seeded insecurities ... the battle of cancer in a dear family member ... the tragedy of the Boston marathon ... poor decisions with grave consequences ... a broken heart for those who are suffering

Honestly, I have learned to not run away from the brokenness and from the darkness and I have learned to confront many of the issues, but as more time passes it is becoming more and more difficult to synthesize the bitterness with the sweetness... to let the two occur simultaneously. The bitterness has been put to the back burner, not because I do not want to face it, but because there are so many other wonderful things to delight in and to keep me busy. 

But recently, the bitterness has been catching up to me and the door is being unhinged. It happens in the simplest of moments, the bitterness bubbles up and becomes too much.

It's in the moment that I am at the lake with the best team in the entire world and I am struck with an intense sadness that the Lord is asking me to leave a group of people that I love, to enter into a community where I am so unknown.

The time that I am sitting at Starbucks attempting to write my ten-page paper due the next day and something pops up on Facebook reminding me of the brokenness and I am unhinged. Huge tears welling up in my eyes, giving it all I have to not break down in sobs, and the hope of finishing the paper beginning to fade away as a distant memory.

When all clear-minded thinking is thrown out the door when Anna asks me to take a picture to finish a project she is working on. I end up hating every single thing about the picture... my hair, my outfit, my smile and the fact that it has to be done right then... All ridiculous things to get upset about, but I do because the bitterness creeps out in the most unexpected of moments.

And then there is a phone call that sends my day spinning and I just don't know where to begin to pick up the pieces.

It is so difficult for me to synthesize the bitter and the sweet. It doesn't seem okay for them to happen simultaneously.

I feel guilty when I rejoice in the sweet, and I feel guilty when I wallow in the bitter. 

It's in this time that I have started reading Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist. Her words bring comfort in this season.

"Bittersweet is the idea that in all things there is both something broken and something beautiful, that there is a sliver of lightness on even the darkest of nights, a shadow of hope in every heartbreak, and that rejoicing is no less rich when it contains a splinter of sadness." 

When I really consider it, that is beyond true. In all of the brokenness there is something incredibly beautiful. Each time the bitterness appears and I am done sobbing and trying to dry the tears, Jesus is beside me helping me pick up the pieces. 

He is there when the team comes back together at the lake house for a family-style dinner. He is there as he instills a peace in my heart and a calm to finish my paper with enough time to actually get six hours of sleep. He is there in the Every Nation worship after the picture taking hissy fit. And He is there on the other side of the phone when I call my best friend because I just don't know what to do anymore and she reminds me that it isn't my fault.

He is here in these moments reminding me...

My sweet child, I am not mad at you. I have never been mad at you. I am not punishing you for anything you have done. You do not need to feel guilty, you have been set free. I am crying with you and I am rejoicing with you. I love you. 

So yes, this season is bittersweet, but Jesus is good and faithful. He has not changed a bit, through any of this. He is still the same perfect God who calls me His beloved and who died on the cross to save the world. He is the same God that has always been there.

And today, things are changing, but the God of the universe is not. I am happy and I am sad, all at the same time.

"This is what I have come to believe about change: it's good, in the way that childbirth is good, and heartbreak is good, and failure is good. By that I mean it's incredibly painful, exponentially more so if you fight it, and also that it has the potential to open you up, to open life up, to deliver you right into the palm of God's hand, which is where you wanted to be all along, except that you were too busy pushing and pulling your life into exactly what you thought it should be."

You give and take away, You give and take away; my heart will choose to say Lord blessed be Your name