Fullness

It’s my birthday and I fully intend to stuff myself full of chocolate cake at some point. Before that, I wanted to share some thoughts about a different kind of fullness.

The kind of fullness that satiates.

It’s a common tradition to make a birthday wish. I would say my wish had come true, but that wouldn’t be entirely honest: It sounds like I hadn’t worked my ample behind off for it. 

So instead of a wish, I’ll call it a goal and say my goal has been, and will continue to be met: This goal has been life-changing for me.

Fullness. That is it. 

Not happiness, not pleasure, nor peace, ease nor comfort.  

As we all know, you can win without feeling victorious. You can make the best choice and not feel happy. You can feel violently unwell when your environment seems peaceful and can feel unfulfilled in peace when the world is falling apart.

What is unshakeable, is fullness. Developing the internal guide, understanding, love, restraint, gentleness, confidence and patience to have the power to see and face the truth: No matter how painful, wrong, or undesirable, and remain focused on the best path forward. Sometimes the truth is (as it was for me) that you have a drinking problem. Or that you’re a jerk (I’m a winner y’all I promise, lol.) Sometimes the truth is you have a lot to learn. And unlearn. Sometimes the truth is that you really can handle the pain of being wrong, or rejected by a person. Sometimes the truth is you’re lazy or are holding yourself back.

This does not sound like a happy birthday post. But these realizations are what have brought me to a place beyond happiness and joy and I want that for you too.

Beyond some delusion of a conflict-free, mistake-free, failure-free, harmonious existence where no one fights, everyone thinks the same and no one has free will is a place called fullness. This is where we have the maturity, wholeness, patience and restraint to coexist in ways that bring out our best. It’s absolutely difficult. And absolutely worth it.

I haven’t seen my best. We haven’t seen our collective best.
But it is ahead of us.

Our best will come as truth is exposed and we develop the ability to embrace the fullness of what we face, compelled to find the best way forward.

Fullness allows the complexity and nuance of life to coexist with the silly, the enraging, and the mundane. 

Fullness is the texture that makes life rich, glorious and magnificent.Celebrating my 41st birthday in that hard-fought place.

…”that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:19