"Bittersweet" Examined
In case you were wondering about the title of this page, I'll do some backmapping for you.
The idea of "Bittersweet" came out of this prayer time on April 19: "Father, I so desperately need your help. I need courage to face the fear of the unknown. I am not in control, nor can I ever be. I cannot secure the good times. I neither deserve them nor anything else. The good and the bad are relative. Help me to accept that this life is simply bittersweet."
This prayer was birthed out of a really tough day of counseling. Here is what I wrote in my journal at Caribou Coffee:
"Dr. B and I talked about my reluctance to succeed and be happy, even my subtle efforts to sabotage good things in life. We talked it through, and I see how at the heart of such behavior is an effort to control life and protect myself from pain, disappointment, failure, etc. If I am happy or things go well, I honestly get scared of how hard the fall will be when the good times are over. So, I try to prescribe my own times of pain, failures, etc. and limit the good things so that I won't hurt when something bad happens. Dr. B. talked about how God is very aware of the pain/suffering in life. He is not surprised, so why should we be surprised when sorrow mixes with joy? That is how this world functions. Utopia does not exist here. We need not fear bad times - they are coming. Jesus even promised they would come. And He also promised that our joy can be full through Him. Nor do we need ot fear when we succeed. We do not deserve, or not (not) deserve those times. In fact, they often have little to do with us. Dr. B. mentioned the man in the New Testament who was crippled from birth. When the Pharisees asked who had sinned - the man or his parents? - Jesus responded that neither had sinned. His condition had nothing to do with him. Thus, when good times come, we should enjoy them and be thankful. When sorrow comes, we must find joy even as we embrace the sorrow. Call it joy, or call it Jesus, but it is the center we must seek in the midst of all our lives, in the midst of our bittersweet lives."
And then it happened - an epiphany! I was writing all of this when a veil lifted and I envisioned the following: "I will write a book by this title (Bittersweet). The journey of a reluctant warrior who loses his way for a season because he can't accept/deal with life as he sees it. A story we can all relate to in some way. I'm in the middle of a chapter, now. Readers are waiting to see if the protagonist will blindly continue to fall in the same traps or find his way out. They can see the whole terrain from their vantage point. Yet, as dramatic irony goes, they cannot interrupt the characters or even influence decisions. They must be content to continue reading. They are enraptured because his end may be their own. They rejoice when he moves forward and they weep when he cowers stupidly from mere shadows of evils."
That's the beginning, or the middle, or the end. Anyway, it is a start on something I have wanted to do for a long time - write a book.
More thoughts:
If we do not accept life as bittersweet, and if we do not look to Jesus for meaning, we will undoubtedly become dysfunctional. By design, we need Jesus to function in this world. He is to our spiritual lives what oxygen is to our physical lives. When we see the world as it is - a mixture of good and evil - we have to make a decision. Will we choose to truly live in this world? Or, will we try to escape and write our own reality? It is in attempting to redefine reality that we become dysfunctional. The protagonist in my story is unwilling to accept the reality of his world. Perhaps he was willing to accept the reality at one point, but was unable to deal with reality on his own. Thus, he came up with ways to deal, to cope. In a sense, he began to medicate himself to deal with life. In doing so, he strays from the center, from reality, and loses his way. But only temporarily! This story has a redemptive thread running through it. A sliver of light that reveals hope is still in reach!
So that's it - bittersweet!
The idea of "Bittersweet" came out of this prayer time on April 19: "Father, I so desperately need your help. I need courage to face the fear of the unknown. I am not in control, nor can I ever be. I cannot secure the good times. I neither deserve them nor anything else. The good and the bad are relative. Help me to accept that this life is simply bittersweet."
This prayer was birthed out of a really tough day of counseling. Here is what I wrote in my journal at Caribou Coffee:
"Dr. B and I talked about my reluctance to succeed and be happy, even my subtle efforts to sabotage good things in life. We talked it through, and I see how at the heart of such behavior is an effort to control life and protect myself from pain, disappointment, failure, etc. If I am happy or things go well, I honestly get scared of how hard the fall will be when the good times are over. So, I try to prescribe my own times of pain, failures, etc. and limit the good things so that I won't hurt when something bad happens. Dr. B. talked about how God is very aware of the pain/suffering in life. He is not surprised, so why should we be surprised when sorrow mixes with joy? That is how this world functions. Utopia does not exist here. We need not fear bad times - they are coming. Jesus even promised they would come. And He also promised that our joy can be full through Him. Nor do we need ot fear when we succeed. We do not deserve, or not (not) deserve those times. In fact, they often have little to do with us. Dr. B. mentioned the man in the New Testament who was crippled from birth. When the Pharisees asked who had sinned - the man or his parents? - Jesus responded that neither had sinned. His condition had nothing to do with him. Thus, when good times come, we should enjoy them and be thankful. When sorrow comes, we must find joy even as we embrace the sorrow. Call it joy, or call it Jesus, but it is the center we must seek in the midst of all our lives, in the midst of our bittersweet lives."
And then it happened - an epiphany! I was writing all of this when a veil lifted and I envisioned the following: "I will write a book by this title (Bittersweet). The journey of a reluctant warrior who loses his way for a season because he can't accept/deal with life as he sees it. A story we can all relate to in some way. I'm in the middle of a chapter, now. Readers are waiting to see if the protagonist will blindly continue to fall in the same traps or find his way out. They can see the whole terrain from their vantage point. Yet, as dramatic irony goes, they cannot interrupt the characters or even influence decisions. They must be content to continue reading. They are enraptured because his end may be their own. They rejoice when he moves forward and they weep when he cowers stupidly from mere shadows of evils."
That's the beginning, or the middle, or the end. Anyway, it is a start on something I have wanted to do for a long time - write a book.
More thoughts:
If we do not accept life as bittersweet, and if we do not look to Jesus for meaning, we will undoubtedly become dysfunctional. By design, we need Jesus to function in this world. He is to our spiritual lives what oxygen is to our physical lives. When we see the world as it is - a mixture of good and evil - we have to make a decision. Will we choose to truly live in this world? Or, will we try to escape and write our own reality? It is in attempting to redefine reality that we become dysfunctional. The protagonist in my story is unwilling to accept the reality of his world. Perhaps he was willing to accept the reality at one point, but was unable to deal with reality on his own. Thus, he came up with ways to deal, to cope. In a sense, he began to medicate himself to deal with life. In doing so, he strays from the center, from reality, and loses his way. But only temporarily! This story has a redemptive thread running through it. A sliver of light that reveals hope is still in reach!
So that's it - bittersweet!
posted by Dave Jones at 9:40 AM
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