Day 13 – Owning Our Brokenness – Silver Linings Playbook

 So, Silver Linings Playbook was just released on Netflix instant, so I thought this was a good a time as any to adapt and bump this up from the archives since it flows with the Walking Brave theme.  Also, if you haven’t read the novel the movie was based on, go do it! It’s the best adaptation I’ve ever seen – the book is so different and yet so the same.  

*****

I want to be done with exhausting myself with an idealistic vision of a life that will never exist.

“You’re afraid to be alive, you’re afraid to live.”

What does it mean to live an authentic life?  One that embraces the mess, the life that is, not the life that you want?  What is a life that seeks out the chaos and the unstable and gives them a bedroom in the attic because of love?

What kind of life is it that doesn’t force ‘the right thing’ or shame you for feeling ALL THE FEELINGS?  What kind of love tolerates a 4 am screaming fit about a book?

Silver Linings Playbook accepts, even celebrates, the fact that we are deeply messy, broken people.

“There’s always gonna be a part of me that’s sloppy and dirty, but I like that, with all the other parts of myself.”

What would happen if, at your next Bible study or small group you said that same thing?

What would it look like if we all admitted our sloppy and dirtiness  and admitted that we liked them – not just offering them up to be fixed?  Can we like our broken parts as much as our shiny ones?

I’m tired of feeling ashamed and guilty for not being good enough.  I’m tired of feeling like I need to constantly be in the midst of soul surgery.  Yes, we’re all works in progress, but it often feels like the goal is to get ourselves fixed up so we can present ourselves to the world as capable, blessed, accepted – loved.

But sometimes I just want to curl up on the couch in the midst of a messy house and read a book, you know?

Verses like Phil 2:15 and Eph 5:27 are given out as the standard to measure ourselves up against  and if we aren’t there, we need to work harder, be purer, cut off anything negative in us.  Because only what is pure and beautiful and good is what is wanted, what is lovable.  But what is more beautiful and good than seeing God in the brokenness?

We’re taught that if only the Israelites would have believed God, they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble.  If only Naomi would have trusted God, she wouldn’t have wasted her emotions on all that negativity.  If only I would read my Bible more, I would be nicer.  If only I prayed more, I’d yell less.

And maybe that’s true.  Maybe if I disciplined my kids more, they would be nearly perfectly obedient.  If I came down hard enough, often enough, I could probably get them to have quiet indoor voices all the time.

But is stifling their personalities, forcing them to suppress their emotions worth it?  I don’t want to raise robots.  I want to raise healthy adults.

“I want our home to be a place where we can be our bravest selves and our most fearful selves.”Daring Greatly, Brené Brown.

I could make our house be a place where they were never allowed to fight with their siblings, never tell us when they’re mad at us.  But that doesn’t teach them how to handle their emotions.  It won’t teach them how to handle a boss or a spouse that they’ll get upset with.  Because emotions will always be with them.  Brokenness will always be a part of them.*

The goal isn’t to rid ourselves of brokenness.  The goal is to explore it, work towards healing and understanding, but to know it will always be there in some form.  If we want to be alive, if we don’t want to be afraid to live, perfection can’t be our goal.

I think there’s a sacred freedom in owning our brokenness.  In the sloppiness, I find honesty.  If I can accept the dirty parts of my life, I can leave if-only land.  It doesn’t matter if some of my wishes come true.  We’re still always going to be fragmented people, making our way toward wholeness.

If we’re not broken, what is redemption and resurrection for?  If I have to cut off part of my humanness in order to be acceptable, then what does incarnation even mean?

If I can only consider myself a good parent when I’m not yelling, not frustrated, not angry, not tired, not busy…..then I’m not a good parent that often.

But because God incarnates all of life – all of me – then these sloppy, dirty parts of me are important.

We do emotions in this house.  All of them.  The happy ones and the messy ones.  And I like that.  Along with all the other parts of us.

It doesn’t mean there’s never consequences for bad behavior.  Even Pat started taking his meds after a fight.  But my kids know emotions are nothing to be ashamed of.  We are what we are, and in our messy brokenness  we have the chance to live honest, vulnerable, authentic love.

Silver Linings Playbook is a real movie about loving and accepting people where they are.  It’s a great story of how we’re all broken, all a little crazy, and how we can be loved into wholeness.

“This ‘crazy sad shit’ as you call it, made you a happier, calmer person with a beautiful positive philosophy…”

 

*I don’t mean to imply that emotions are a bad thing, or having them equals brokenness.  It’s more that the ‘darker’ emotions point to sources of brokenness, and if we engage both the emotions and the source, then we can begin to see where redemption might occur.

 

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31days

6 Comments

  1. Marvia Davidson March 9, 2013 at 12:36 pm

    BaM!!!! I am with you Caris. I get it cause it’s the cry in my heart to – let me just be. Love me or leave me, but let me be. Thank God that He loves as as we are and never lets us go. I don’t know why it’s so hard for us human beings to just love without condition – perhaps because it means leaving our thrones of judgment and stepping back down into our finiteness.

  2. Faith B. March 20, 2013 at 6:28 pm

    I finally saw the movie and came back to read your post. It was even more powerful seeing the fullness of the context and connection. The characters felt very real and it’s amazing to think we can be something special when we’re real and authentic, broken and all. I am saving this so I can go back to this and maybe show people why I like the movie.

  3. Julie Davis May 19, 2014 at 9:24 pm

    We loved that movie. I love how you used it as your springboard for this post. Parenting. It’s the most horrific and wonderful thing I’ve ever done. Thanks for the encouragement to let them “be.” It’s very tempting to correct every situation. Ultimately, they are God’s and not ours, which gives us a lot of freedom actually to be interested in them as people created in the image of God. But, what to do when they’re not treating each other that way? It’s a question I’m constantly asking myself.

  4. Caiobhe October 13, 2014 at 3:54 pm

    I loved, loved, loved the book and the film. Thank you for this tonight. I am in a place of trying to work out what to do with some of the dirty, sloppy bits and I don’t want to just hide them and pretend they’re not there. Because they are. and maybe that’s ok….

  5. Cara Strickland October 13, 2014 at 8:45 pm

    Love this, Caris. I just wrote recently about how much I want to go to therapy so that I will be fixed and not bother anyone with my brokenness anymore. What a thought! Sometimes, I think it’s more of a discipline to sit with the brokenness that we do have and still be thankful.

  6. Liz von Ehrenkrook October 14, 2014 at 4:39 pm

    Loooooooooooved this post. And I love the movie, too.

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