The Danger of a Better Half

Confession, just between you and me: I have spent an embarrassing amount of time planning my wedding. My feeble excuse is that I’m a female. I feel like it’s my right. You know? Don’t all little girls grow up dreaming of a fairy tale wedding—whatever that might look like?

My wedding fever comes and goes, even now—at a time in my life when I know I’m not even close to being ready to be a wife or a mom. I look at pictures on Pinterest; I tuck ideas into my memory bank when I attend a friend or family member’s wedding; I keep a note in my phone of all kinds of wedding odds and ends.

Okay, in all honesty, I know it’s pathetic. But also maybe a little normal? Because I’ve grown up in this society where we put love on a pedestal. In all the TV shows, all the movies, all the books, the romance steals the show. Love gets good ratings. It just does.

We’re relational human beings. We desire to connect deeply with each other, and when we find people we do connect with, we hold onto them. I love that about humans. How fiercely we can love when we’re given the opportunities.

What I don’t love is how quickly we manage to twist our human feelings around. Because love is what we’re about, it becomes the lens we see our entire lives through. It becomes part of our identity. It becomes our core instead of our fruit. We are consumed by this imperfect, human love.

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard refer to their spouse or significant other as their “better half.” I can’t tell you how many years I spent thinking about how great it would be when I finally met my own “better half.” It’s harmless enough, and even kind of cute.

But what does having a better half really mean?

Am I not whole right now because I don’t even have someone to call my “other half,” let alone my better one? If I ever do obtain my other half, am I inferior to him because I’ve already deemed him to be better in my mind?

And, maybe the most important question of all: Where does Jesus fit into that equation?

I’m almost 20 years old (yeah, I know, it scares me too). I’ve never dated anyone. I’ve never even been on a date. I still think my dad is the best guy who has ever lived—and probably always will. I have not ever been half of any equation, and that is 100% fine by me.

Because I’m head-over-heels in love with Jesus, and I know I’d be completely empty without Him. No halves involved. Jesus is an all-or-nothing type of Guy. And that’s 100% fine by me, too.

Human love tells me that I am half of a good thing, doomed forever to be “almost-but-not-quite.”

Jesus’ love tells me that I am empty and lost—but wanted and cherished anyway.

I am not half of a whole to Jesus. I can’t be. Because He is everything, and I am nothing. I am just a human, who craves a love that she can’t seem to find in the world. And yet, He doesn’t measure me by what I’m not—by the empty spaces that I carry around in my heart. He measures me by what I am: His.

Hey, I might plan my wedding on random boring days every now and then. And I might love a good late-night chick flick where the guy undoubtedly gets the girl. And I might keep a note on my phone of all these fun ideas for a wedding.

But the bottom line is this:

My soul longs only for Jesus, who is not my better half but rather my better whole. Because to say He is my better half would imply that there is a part of me that exists outside of Him—a part of me that is worth it without Him. And I have never known that to be true.

So someday, if I ever do meet someone I want to share my life with, he won’t be my other, better half. He’ll be a human being—as flawed and broken as I am. And that’s okay. Because Jesus will be his better whole, too.

You know what’s cool about that? Jesus does some crazy things with flawed and broken people who come together in His love.