Imperfect

Imperfect.

I recently spent the day at a local park on the lake. It was a glorious day bathed in a mix of sun and white puffy clouds. The breeze coming off the water lulled me into a false sense of coolness. Honestly, I knew I was getting sun, but I just didn’t want to move. 

When I got home, my daughter Face-Timed (is that a verb?) me, and I saw my image in the tiny preview window; the sunburned skin and the freckles. Oh, the freckles! They pop up bright and brown after a day in the sun. I had forgotten how many I really have. It could be the Irish in me or perhaps the fact that I was raised in South Florida and was in the sun ALL. THE. TIME.  Growing up, most people in Miami had freckles sprinkled on their nose, cheeks, and maybe the tops of their shoulders. Mine were all over. I remember the taunts vividly and teasing, "Were you on the other side of a screen door in a paint storm?" Yeah, that was one of my favorites.  

 When the call with my daughter ended, I snapped this pic. I looked at it for a long time, imagining the tools I could employ to remove the spotty imperfections. 

 Why do we do that? Why do we focus on and try to photoshop out our imperfections?

 If you're a Seinfeld fan, you might remember the episode "Red dot.”  George and Jerry are looking for a gift for Elaine when Jerry spots an expensive cashmere sweater on clearance. George asks the clerk why the discount, and then she points out a tiny, red dot. "It's damaged," Jerry declares, snatching the sweater out of George's hands, tossing it back on the clearance table. 

Discounted for damage. 

"I'm done, I thought. Done at twenty-five! After all, who will want a fat, freckled-faced, college dropout, bitter, angry, damaged, divorced single mother? Life was over. I was in captivity."

 In this quote from my upcoming book, Escape Hatch, I was describing how I felt after my high school sweetheart walked away from our family. I couldn't imagine how life would go on. My perfect life, with my perfect baby, and my perfect husband had ended. 

“Perfect” has always been a goal for me. Growing up, I always felt I had to be perfect to earn love. It was a fool's mission, at best. Continually striving for some impossible, invisible goal, while convincing myself it was within my grasp. "Effort, dear heart," I would tell myself. “Just try harder.” 

But in 1987, despite trying harder, I had failed at marriage. I had failed at parenting because I was doing it solo. I had failed in education because I left college before graduating to marry my high school sweetheart. I was connecting the “red dots” of imperfection in my mind, like a condemning constellation.

Much to our dismay, many of us have fallen short of performance perfection and will continue to do so because we live in a fallen, imperfect world.

But what about when you feel like you are inherently flawed?

Most of us who battle with perfection have heard, “You’re not what you do.” Maybe today you would say, you’re not your dot. BUT is it possible to have a “divine designer” dot?

Have you ever heard the term "Amish flaw?" Whether it’s folklore or fact, and no one knows, but the idea is that the Amish, who make simple and exquisite quilts, purposely plan a “mistake” into each of their projects because they believe attempts at human perfection mock God.

Well, consider me scolded first of all. I never imagined that my pursuit of perfection mocked God. Trust me; I would've abandoned that pursuit if I had ever viewed it that way.

What if in the tapestry God designs for each of our lives, He intentionally weaves in our flaws and imperfections because it makes us special, unique, useful to His Kingdom?

My divorce, my cancer, my husband’s death, have all given me a voice to minister to others. 

What used to feel like a condemning constellation, God has redeemed to be bright lights to a dark world. 

How many of your imperfections does God desire to use in their messiness? What have you tried to photoshop out of your life picture that in God’s hands only reveals another facet of your magnificent journey?

As far as my physical flaws, someone recently told me when I find love again; he will love the mess of me- the roadmap of scars on my body from my breast cancer. He will love the wrinkles and the rolls that come with being a "certain age," and he will love my freckles. And when he sees whatever emotional and experiential, "dots" I have, he’ll think- no one else has dots like that, you’re special.  

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