Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

sarah mae

A book that stands alone: The Complicated Heart by Sarah Mae

This is a book about a mother-daughter relationship, one where the mother is drunk a lot and emotionally and verbally abuses her daughter for a significant portion of her life. But it’s also about the hard work it takes to heal from and in that kind of relationship. It’s a wildly gracious and generous story of love and forgiveness, but don’t mistake that description for “happily-ever-after.” It’s a story of redemption in the midst of hurt.

In The Complicated Heart, Sarah Mae takes readers along as she revisits her relationship with her mother at a variety of ages and pivotal moments in her life. It is not always easy to read because it is a raw and vulnerable story of a relationship full of hurt.

I can’t say I’ve read another book like this one. What sets this book apart is the inclusion of Sarah’s mother’s journals, sometimes written when these events occurred. Giving her mother a voice in this story changes the feel of it because readers realize, like Sarah did, that her mother had a lot of stuff to deal with, too.

“Maybe He saw what I couldn’t see, what I can’t see–all the ways her brokenness led her to breaking others.”

I don’t know if everyone in a complicated close relationship is ready for this book, and the author acknowledges in the beginning that readers need to be honest with themselves about their readiness to delve into the issues and memories of the past. But there’s such an air of hope about this book that I hope it finds its way to those who need it most.

My favorite line in the entire book sums up its intention:

I read an advance copy of the book. Review reflects my honest opinion.

You can read the first three chapters for free here. (I’m not sure how long that offer will last, so click while you can to get a feel for the story!)

And even though this is story is about a specific mother and a daughter, the principles apply to other complicated relationships and mother-daughter circumstances. Maybe your mother wasn’t an emotionally abusive alcoholic. This book is still for you.

How to live with unfulfilled dreams: Review of Longing For Paris by Sarah Mae

Ah, Paris. The word itself makes me sigh, just hearing it. And if I hadn’t had the unforgettable opportunity to visit Paris in college while I studied for a semester in England, the longing might be unbearable.

Okay, so there’s still a part of me that dreams of going back, this time with my love by my side. Isn’t it tragic that my husband and I have been to Paris separately, in our youth, but never together? Tragic, I tell you.

There’s something about Paris that hits on my longing for adventure and beauty and meaning. And it’s not just Paris. It’s Italy. It’s travel to anywhere I’ve never been. It’s my dream of writing a book. Of finding purpose in my work and life.

It’s the kinds of things that get pushed down or set aside in motherhood, things I’ve been wondering about: Are they recoverable? Do they fit in my life anymore as a mom?

Not long ago, I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love and I wanted to escape my day-to-day life–for real–to have those kinds of adventures and “find myself.”

LFPThank God–I really do!–for the next book to come along: Sarah Mae’s Longing for Paris: One Woman’s Search for Joy, Beauty and Adventure Right Where She Is. Pause for a moment and take all of that title in.

In this book, Sarah Mae recognizes our longings and affirms them as gifts from a God who cares about our dreams because He cares about us.

lfp-dreams

This book could not have come at a more perfect time. (Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of the book from Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for my review.) I’m in the middle of a year focusing on the word “whole” and my kids will both be in school all day starting in the fall. I have this amazing opportunity to rediscover who I am after feeling like motherhood swallowed me these last 7 or so years.

Longing For Paris encourages moms at any stage of parenting (or any woman with unfulfilled longings) that we can have that beauty, adventure and meaning we’re looking for, right in our own homes and towns. But it’s not just empty platitudes Sarah Mae offers; it’s practical ways to do this.

A few of my favorite take-aways from the book:

  • Adventure can be anything out of the ordinary: dessert before dinner, a French pastry from a local cafe, savoring your food. It’s a call to seek out the “Paris” wherever you are.
  • Beauty is what you make of it. In the ordinary, everyday, we can begin to think that we’re not beautiful or our lives are not beautiful. Taking a cue from the confidence of French women, who seldom worry about what other people think, Sarah encourages us to choose to see beauty. And one way to do this is to get rid of our frumpy clothes or anything we wear that doesn’t make us feel beautiful. I love this suggestion because I know there are clothes in my closet that negatively affect my attitude about myself.
  • Simplicity adds to our contentment with what we have. It’s weird how having more stuff doesn’t make us any happier, just more burdened. She told a story about having her kids choose 20 things to keep out of all their things. That sounded like a lot, but she realized how much more they actually had. Purging and simplifying our things helps us enjoy what we do have.

I took a lot of notes with this book, and I want to plaster some of the quotes from the book in front of me always so I can remember these words.

LFPquote

It’s a beautiful call to live a full and rewarding life, even if it’s not everything you hoped it would be.

If you love your life–most days–but wonder if there’s still room in it for your dreams, then this is the book that will help you live with that tension, not just in a settling for less kind of way, but in a deeply satisfying way.

You can find out more about the book here.