The Joy of the Bittersweet

“For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 1:8

There is a great café in Paris that I’ll visit as soon as possible upon my reentry in France. Angelina’s has the world’s best hot chocolate (that is a fact, not an opinion). It is a strong and thick chocolate, and drinking it is like sipping on a melted candy bar. It is very sweet, and one cannot drink too much or they will get sick. There is just the right amount of bitter aftertaste at the end that perfects the experience. It is, however, a bittersweet chocolate.

I find the term “bittersweet” interesting. This paradoxical word helps us to describe something that we feel all too often. After every sweet gulp of life there lingers a small amount of bitterness that keeps us longing for a perfection that we haven’t quite grasped. The sweetness tempts us with hope, but it still remains a hope that has not yet been perfectly fulfilled.

I am sitting in the Charlotte airport with a bittersweet feeling. I am moving back to Paris, a city that I love and long to see know Jesus. I got a great job at a church working with youth and am thrilled with the opportunity to invest in young lives. I am about to renew old friendships in France after being away for a year. I have so much to be thankful for, and I am taking in all the sweetness of God’s provisions for me.

Yet even while enjoying these provisions, there is still a small, bitter aftertaste that I must endure. I have said many good-byes in the past few days. Some of the good-byes will be for short times, and others for long times. It was bitter saying good-bye to some friends that I don’t know when I’ll see again. It was bitter to walk out of my sister’s house last night after hugging my niece and nephew. It was bitter leaving my parents at the terminal as I proceeded through airport security. All of those steps leading me away from my loved ones were heavy steps.

Yet the steps toward God’s call were light. It is here, in this bittersweet life, where God has called us to perform the good works that He has prepared for us. While it was difficult leaving, I am thrilled to be following God down his narrow road. These mixed feelings, I have learned, will always be a part of our present and momentary troubles. No matter what continent I live on I will always be missing people I love. There will always be bittersweet feelings.

Yet bittersweet chocolate, as I hope I have already established, tastes delicious; and just like the bittersweet chocolate, this bittersweet feeling is good. It is a good thing that we long for one another, as Paul did for the Philippian church that he had to take heavy steps away from. The bitterness is only evidence of a deeper sweetness that waits only to be reawakened according to God’s providential guidance. The longing that we have for our loved ones is evidence that we have the treasure of relationships. The bittersweet experience of being away from loved ones is much better than the bitter experience of not having loved ones to miss.

I am blessed of God to have such an enormous weight of bittersweetness on my shoulders right now. This “bittersweetness” would not be possible without all of the great people that God has put in my path through the years. It is a great gift to be able to say, with Paul, that I “long for all of you in Christ Jesus.” It is a gift I treasure, and the bitterness only affirms its worth. While the bitterness may nevertheless be tough to swallow, it will only strengthen the sweetness of the moment when our longing is fulfilled.

All of these longings, of course, are only echoes of a deeper longing. God will fulfill that one as well.