Tag Archives: church

The Lie Jerry Told Us

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Jerry Maguire is one of those movies that is stuffed with great quotes: “Help me help you”, “Show me the money!”, and “It’s not show friends. It’s show business,” to name just a few.

But arguably two of the most famous lines in the movie come from the romantic interchange between Jerry and Dorothy at the end. The first of those is “You had me at hello.”

I love it, but personally, I like this spin even better:

you had me at bacon

“You had me at hello” is only the second most famous line, though. I’m willing to bet that the most famous by an order of magnitude, is the line that comes just before it:

“You complete me.”

I LOVED this scene in the movie at the time, but over the past decade I have developed a love-hate relationship with it, since I have heard that phrase “you complete me”, or “he completes me”, or variations on that theme on the lips of many young couples since. Dating couples seem to have developed a Jerry–Maguire-litmus-test for compatibility: do we fit together like two parts of a puzzle? Do we match? Is he or she the “half” I have been looking for all my life? Do I feel complete?

There’s a spiritualized version of the Jerry-Maguire-compatibility-standard too, which I have heard at wedding after wedding after wedding. It goes something like this: “We were single for all those years and we learned to depend completely on God, and now God has given me the gift of this spouse to complete my blessing. We are ONE.”

As if you were half before.

As if you were “incomplete”, but now are whole.

As if spouses were gold stars for good behavior as a single.

And frankly, friends, it both frustrates and saddens me. The “you complete me” mantra has capitalized on a deeply-held lie which we are fed: that singleness is lesser, that marriage is more, that lives without spouses are incomplete, and that lives with spouses are ipso facto magically, wonderfully full and rich and complete.

It’s just not true, and the lie does damage both to singles and to married people.

To singles, it slights and demeans their contribution. It puts them on social and spiritual “probation”. To married people, it places an impossible burden on both husband and wife.

Marriage was not ultimately meant as a “means for personal fulfillment”. Jerry and Dorothy, sweet as they may be, are misled to believe that marriage is the cherry on the top of a successful life. We live in a world which mistakenly believes that life is always about ME, and the corollary of that is a belief that marriage is also about ME-you and you-ME: it’s about US.

But life is not about me, and marriage is not about us. Making one’s life goal to be about personal fulfillment (whether as a single person or in marriage), is a Sisyphean task. No matter how much we try, no matter how good a “fit” our friends or spouse may be, “completion” can never be found that way. Marriage requires work and commitment. It has seasons of loneliness and feeling very incomplete, even when things are healthy. Relational challenges happen, and growth needs to happen – and we rarely feel “complete” when we realize how much room for growth is yet needed. “You complete me” is a relational albatross for those in the marital trenches.

Life is about me-for-others, which is another way of describing love. And love in marriage, is me-for-my-spouse, so that together as a family we can be us-for-you. The couple who spend their lives holding hands and facing inwards will eventually discover that there is a high cost to having turned your back on others. However, the couple who stand holding hands and facing the world side-by-side still have TWO free hands with which to serve and love the world, even while they remain connected to each other.

Ultimately, it is Jesus who completes us. “You have been made complete in Christ,” says Colossians 2:10. Single or married, we find our fullness and completion by being connected to God. If we are single – we stand fulfilled in Christ, with two hands free to reach out to the world around us. If we are married, we stand fulfilled in Christ, and as a couple we still extend two free hands to reach out.

So, be warned, friends: I love going to weddings, and I’d love to attend yours. But if anyone makes a “you complete me” speech during the toasts, please pardon me if I cough quietly in the corner. We sell ourselves short if we believe what Jerry told us.

“You complete me,” is a line for prayer, not for our partners. And said to the right Person, it never disappoints.

When you feel like you don’t have it all together…

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On Sunday morning, we attempted to make it to the 9am church service.

We had a promising start: everyone awake on time, and enough milk left over for every one’s cereal. So far, so good. After that, things got a little dicey. An hour later we had found a second pair of shorts for the 3-year old, after the first was sacrificed to the aforementioned cereal. I forfeited my shower, and put my daughter’s hair in a pony tail rather than fight the battle to get it brushed.

We were heading out towards the car when my husband let out a barbaric yawp: there were plops of poop on the hallway. Our toddler had crafted an award-winning blow-out and was dropping bombs (literally) as he tooled around the house. I abandoned my make-up bag: “you take the baby! I’ll get the floor! Go! Go! Go!” One has to move fast on these things or else little feet are irresistibly drawn to test the squelchiness of the deposits.

My fervent cleaning was interspersed with cries of “don’t stand in it!” and concurrent “put your shoes on” instructions. Five minutes later, the cleaning was done and with a backwards glance at the clock, I gave up on the shoes for the boy. We piled into the car. I passed out pretzels to the kids as we snapped their buckles shut: partly to supplement their breakfast and also to give their mouths some thing else to do other than whine.

Five minutes later I looked at my reflection in the car mirror. “I am not wearing mascara,” I declared to my husband. “I don’t think I can go to church.” He kept driving. Oh well, I thought. Perhaps God has ordained that I will cry this morning and it will turn out for the best that I didn’t look like a raccoon all day with tear-smudged face paint.

Minutes later we pulled up into church. The kids shuttled off to their various classes, we waved hello at friends, we got settled. We drank in the warmth of friendship and the spiritual richness of the morning, and I had all but forgotten about the harried hurriedness of our morning until I got home and came across this clip:

I watched it twice and laughed until tears streamed down my mascara-free face. Apart from the celebrity-walk-of-fame music announcing our arrival, it was us in that video, down to the barefoot boy.

What a great reminder: I don’t need to have it all together before I go to church. Church is the togetherness of the un-put-together, and it is warm, wonderful and real. Jesus loves us as is. Sweat pants and barefoot boys happen, as do tears and stresses and sadness. It’s good and it is welcome. We can go as is.

But I might still put a back up mascara in the car. Just in case.

Thank you for loving my children

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Thank You For Loving My Children

Dear friend,

In case I haven’t said so before, I wanted to thank you for loving my children. Maybe you don’t think it’s a big deal, but I want you to know it means the world.

Thank you for looking them in the eye and greeting them by name. You are teaching them they are valuable.

Thank you for asking them questions about their lives and waiting patiently for their stumbled replies. You are teaching them the currency of conversation.

Thank you for entering their imaginary worlds and helping find the pet unicorn a snack. Thank you for reading to them, even though they were sticky and stinky. Thank you for for pretending you couldn’t see them under the kitchen table when they hid in the same place for the tenth time playing hide-and-go-seek. You are teaching them that that they are wanted. You are showing them the value of play.

Thank you for that time you played rough-and-tumble T-ball with them. Thank you for asking about their first day of school. Thank you for reminding them to say thank you when I’m too weary to remind them again. Thank you for telling them your own childhood story to distract them from their tears.

Thank you for being a safe adult, another role model in their “village”. Your presence in their life is more valuable than you know. They soak up your laughter, your kindness, your pleases-and-thank-yous.

We take our children to church, but you are the church to our children. You are one of the teaching aides God has put into their life, and they love you.

Thank you for loving my children, and in doing so, for loving me.