Imperfectly Beautiful (originally published June 14, 2016)

For days I have been beating myself into a spiritual pulp for my failure to meet God’s perfection. I have boundary problems. Big ones. My biggest one is my human obsession. I fixate on people - strive to please them and make them happy, and eventually I drive them away. It’s a horrible pattern that I’ve pretty much reenacted dozens of times throughout my life. It wasn’t until recently that I’d come to terms with what the problem was and begun working on it.

From my most recent rekindling of my walk with God, I’ve shifted that human obsession to something that is . . . not human. My obsession has been Him and his Word, prayer, and living a life of a woman of God.

One problem here . . .

Part of my human obsession is that I try to maintain perfection in the eyes of whomever I am trying to please. Yes, friends, I have been trying to be perfect in the eyes of God. And failing miserably.

So then began the self-loathing. And it got worse and worse until yesterday it all kind of came to a head, and I spent a majority of the day wandering around in prayer asking Him What next? I cannot shake this obsession, and it’s excruciatingly painful.

It wasn’t until later in the day, during one of my tearful discussions with a close friend that my attention was brought to the fact that God expects imperfection. He knows we will never achieve perfection, and he loves us anyway and forgives us for our shortcomings. Can I really expect to be perfect in the eyes of the Lord? The answer to that is a big fat NO.

My mother was able to recount scriptures where men and women of God fell short and sinned time after time after time and yet they were loved by God. In the book Boundaries, the authors discuss humans as beings who naturally push boundaries, cross lines, and sin. Is it our job to try to walk the straight and narrow? Yes. Absolutely. But the point is, I need to give myself some grace - like God gives me.

He forgives. He accepts my imperfections and calls me beautiful. Who am I to question his acceptance of these flaws? Let the healing begin.