Book Review: The Complicated Heart by Sarah Mae

Loving like Jesus did is hard when someone continually hurts you. Where do you draw the line of maintaining a relationship, offering grace, and setting boundaries that allow you to heal and move forward? The Complicated Heart is one woman's story of learning to love her alcoholic mother while also learning to be emotionally healthy. Sarah Mae repeatedly took her pain to Jesus and let Him bring peace and healing, while still reaching out to her mother.

Written in a journal format, alternating between Sarah's own memories and pages from her mother's journal, we see the hearts of two women, each broken by a parent's hurtful words and behavior, being drawn toward God. In her pain, Sarah Mae made choices that brought even more pain and shame to herself, but in the end, both women found redemption through God's grace.

I have to admit that it was hard to read her mother's journals written as prayers to God, knowing that at the time it was written she was an alcoholic who was verbally and emotionally abusive toward her daughter. But Sarah's own love and forgiveness for her mother helped me to see it as the plea of a hurting woman who was trying to ease her own pain and didn't know how to love others because of her pain. Sarah Mae helped me view her mother through Jesus' eyes and reminded me that God sees the hurt and the hearts of people, while we can only see their actions and the results of their choices.

I haven't had that complicated and painful relationship with a parent, but I still found lessons for myself within the book on how to forgive and be vulnerable and open. Sarah Mae's story is messy, and painful, as life often is, but it has been redeemed by Christ's love and she shares it so others can find hope for their own painful and messy relationships. I truly believe that anyone who struggles with the ugliness of their own past, or hurts they haven't faced, can learn something from this book. The Complicated Heart reminds us that no one's life is too ugly, too sinful, or too hurtful to be redeemed by Christ!

April E.