Bittersweet

I have to admit I am not a chocolate lover, that is unless it is very dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is way to sweet for me. Dark chocolate on the other hand encompasses both the bitterness and the simple sweetness that creates a complexity that my palate desires.

I am reading a short book by an author named Shauna Niequist called Bittersweet. The prologue itself is brilliant and challenging.

"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."

This yen and yang according to Neiquist is the central theme that runs through Christian history and faith is "death and rebirth." While this makes me uncomfortable because I want to avoid lumping Christianity into holding the idea of death as central to its core, truth is I know it is true in my own life. My life has had its darknesses, its deaths. It is in those seasons of death that I hope and long for life to spring forth. Those bitter moments make the sweeter moments of my life mean more.

What would Easter be without Good friday? ...The promise land without the desert? Suffering like it or not is a part of all our existences. There is something important that happens in that dark space...

more of bittersweet to come...