This morning, as I marinated in my own frustration/annoyance/pity, it finally came to me. The feeling I'd been trying to identify. Finally. I could 'fix it' and move forward. Because that's what we want to do, right? Encounter, identify, fix, move on.
If only.
This morning, the air was filled with the aromas of chocolate and peanut butter as I decorated my husband's birthday cake. I usually have my earbuds in while decorating; as the music masks the background noise of giggles, bickers, imaginary play, or whines that are a constant soundtrack to life.
A singer/songwriter station on Pandora had a great mix going; when the next thing I knew, I heard song lyrics that seemed to be a little bit louder, a little bit bigger, a little bit knocking right on the door to my soul.
The song had been playing for about a minute and it was the words in the chorus that gave me pause and had me glancing at my phone to see what it was that I was listening to. I knew the artist; had heard several of his songs before, but never this one.
The world will turn and we'll grow, we'll learn how
to be
to be incomplete.
Bingo. Incomplete. That's what word I'd been searching for all this time. As it clicked into the space in my mind, I felt a little loosening in my shoulders and a light shone behind the massive haze that has taken up residence in my soul.
When I thought of the word incomplete and how it fit into my world, the endless lists and calendars and to-dos jumped to the forefront of my mind. Which, on the surface, is what the mass majority thinks of when we envision incomplete.
But outside of my daily and weekly to do list, the feeling of incomplete touches so many places in my heart.
The song continued; the chorus adding lyrics the next time around:
The world will turn and we'll grow, we'll learn how
to be
to be incomplete.
This here now, it's where we touch down.
You and me let's be incomplete.
Ever had a moment when you feel as though a song has been written specifically with you in mind? When the lyrics hit you right *there*?
You and me. Let's be incomplete.
It was talking to me. To us. To You and Me.
Randy and I had our first dance as husband and wife to the song You and Me by Lifehouse. We have signs displaying those words hanging in various places throughout our house. We have matching tattoos bearing those words on our wrists. It's always been about You and Me.
Except there's this time period. This uncomfortable, ouchy time period when things are tough. Sensitive. Challenging and ugly and very, very hurtful. A time when when the You and Me became second string. When it took a back seat to a whole slew of things that went awry inside of a mind and heart and then metastasized into a giant cancer that strangled and threatened the very life of not only You and Me, but the foundation we'd built over the decade plus since becoming You and Me.
But somehow, somewhere, someway...we're still here. There's still a foundation; there's still a force that's kept our broken pieces in close enough proximity to each other that we can still qualify as an us. As a You and Me. The glue within that ampersand between the 'You' and the 'Me' is heavy-laden with grace. With patience. With an underlying foundation of love that stretches back to those first few months of undefined uncertainty when we were too nervous and hesitant to name what was actually developing between us in the wee hours of the night; as we shared pizzas and Louie's chicken sandwiches and story after story story.
Seems like we've always had a bit of incomplete. Even when we finally defined 'us', I don't think we realized that our definitions, our plans, are really just pencil-drawn ideas that sit upon a drafting table; awaiting the ink from the pen of the One who holds it all together.
This year, we nearly took an eraser to our entire plan. We nearly took our crumpled paper plan and rubbed out the lines we'd sketched way back when. We nearly turned it to ash at the hand of a fire that smoldered and erupted and swept through our life. But somehow, somewhere, someway...we're still here. The pencil we're using has a dulled point. It draws broken and imperfect lines. The plans are half-done and undeveloped. They aren't incomplete just because we're using a faulty tool. They're incomplete because we're not the true architect. We're the apprentices, learning as we go, making mistakes, gaining experience, and {hopefully} applying the knowledge we pick up along the way.
This year we spent a lot of time in apprentice mode. We approached the paper plan with experiences and perspectives we had never once envisioned way back when. The learning curve has been steep. The healing has been and will continue to be a process that leaves scars forever. The pencil lines we'd once sketched have been tweaked and lead us into territory that seemed insurmountable. That is, until we found a bit of baseline.
When the mess of pencil seemed too smeared and rubbed raw to read clearly, we found the ink of grace. Slowly that ink became more and more visible; gradually and deliberately making its way to the surface. Growing in strength and beginning to bind up wounds and leaving behind scars that aren't meant to be forgotten; but to serve as stepping stones.
This year we began the rebuilding of a You and Me. We aren't nearly where we should be. But we sure as hell aren't where we were.
This year we found the grace in the ampersand and began illuminating it in ways we never had before.
This year I really, truly realized what You and Me means is "two are better than one, for if they fall, one will lift up the other {Ecclesiastes 4:9-10}. And even beyond that, though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken {4:12}."
That third strand. The strand of grace, the strand of ink that rests between the 'You' and the 'Me' in the shape of an ampersand and an infinity. It's that third strand that makes the world turn. That third strand that gives us grace as we grow and as we learn how to be, to be incomplete.
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