The Power of Imperfection

I don't know why we feel like we have to be perfect.

We're all aware of just how imperfect we are, so why do we feel like we have to put on that facade and pretend like we're more perfect than everyone else?


Maybe because we think if we act like it enough, we'll become it, or at least believe it ourselves.
Cause no one likes looking in the mirror and seeing all their flaws. It's overwhelming.
And we think it's our responsibility as humans to fix, fix, fix everything we find wrong with us.




As Jefferson Bethke said in Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,

"If grace is water, then the church should be an ocean
It's not a museum for good people, it's a hospital for the broken.
Which means I don't have to hide my failure, I don't have to hide my sin
Because it doesn't depend on me it depends on him."

Church is not a museum for the healthy, it's a hospital for the sick.

And if we could all just admit to each other that we're sick, how much more could we be healed?

If we could stop nervously glancing around the room during a convicting sermon, hoping that no one can tell what we're thinking, then maybe we could really look inside ourselves and let ourselves be healed. 

Maybe if we could all admit to being sick, our sickness wouldn't be so shameful knowing that countless people have the same disease, and countless people who have overcome it, can help us overcome. 

But, this doesn't only apply to churches. It applies to all humanity in general.

We know all the right words to say. 

We know how to make it look like we're perfect. 

And we do this because everyone else knows how to make it look like they're perfect too.

It's a vicious cycle.

We look around at all the people who supposedly have it together, and think we need to hide the mess inside ourselves. 

We stuff the dirty laundry under our beds without realizing that they're doing the same thing. 

But from where we stand, everyone else's rooms look clean and tidy. 

Everyone else looks healthy because we don't see the viruses attacking them on the inside.  

We all want to be more perfect than everyone else, for no other reason than pride. 

And we succeed at seeming more perfect, so everyone else around us feels like they need to reach the same standard. The standard that doesn't exist. The standard that was oppressed on us to by someone else. And someone else on them. And someone else on them. 

And the vicious cycle continues. 

Genuinity is a lost virtue. 

Transparency.

Honesty.

Our desire to look perfect is only more symptomatic of our imperfection.

And we're all guilty. We're all sick. 

We all put on masks to gain respect, power, praise, etc., all for the sake of pride--built on the foundation of a lie.

But transparency is beautiful.

The ability to be vulnerable is beautiful.

The humility to open ourselves up for criticism, mockery, judgement, or shame, is beautiful.

Because while we open ourselves up to those, we open ourselves up to healing and love also.

And then we give someone else the opportunity to be transparent, knowing that they're not alone. 

This is not a vicious cycle, but a renewing cycle. 

The more we are willing to be open and honest about our imperfections, the more we allow others to be. 

The moment we all decide to stop pretending we're perfect, is the moment we can truly love each other. 

And the cycle of renewal will continue, giving us the power to change the world. 

But it all starts within ourselves. 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Mark 2:17
Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Death and Taxes

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." 

-C.S. Lewis

Never has death seemed so real to me.
And still, it doesn't seem that real. 


I think it's so crazy that life can just stop.
Just cease.


Where heart beats, brain waves, and muscle movements once existed, now is a cold and lifeless corpse.


Where there once was a human being with a soul, now is just an uninhabited body.


Our bodies are amazing enough, but add life to them and they're completely incomprehensible. 
God takes our bodies and give them thoughts, and memories, and a spirit, and all these things that science can't explain. 

And we live. We're alive. We spend years and years trapped in this body when all at once 20, 40, 65, 87, 100 years are gone and the life in that body is no more. 


How can it be that a body so full of life, can cease to have life in it at all?


How can it be that a simple heart beat pumping blood to our organs is the determining factor for where our souls are living? 
Where our being, our soul, our self is, is determined by oxygen and brain activity. And heart beats. 


In a moment, every bit of unexplainable life can be gone and all that's left is the body that held it to this earth. 


We are not our bodies, and life is not only what we can see. 
We are the spirit and the soul that inhabits these bodies for the time being.




It's easy to kill a body. All that has to be done is stopping a heart. But can you kill the soul that makes the body alive? Can you diminish from existence the spirit that makes the body a person?


No.


So when all that's left is the body, abandoned and deserted, we can only conclude that the soul goes somewhere. 


And when you know where it's going, death doesn't seem so scary. 

The great compromise

It's funny how willing we are to compromise absolutely everything, for absolutely nothing.

Why?

Maybe it's the thrill.
Maybe it's the chance of it turning out differently than it has every other time.
Maybe we're just stupid.
Maybe we don't care.

Shouldn't we know better than to take a risk knowing the outcome?

Why do we run to edges of cliffs and jump, thinking maybe this time I'll fly?

Why do we walk down paths marked with signs that say danger and dead end?

We foolishly think that we're different. This time is different. We're strong enough, we're smart enough, we're dedicated enough.

But we're not.

We're human.

We're weak and searching for a source of strength.

In honor of this Easter day.

Ephesians 1:7

"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace"

This has been on my mind for quite a while. 


For as long as I can remember, I wanted God to show me His love. I wanted to feel it. I wanted to know without a doubt that He loved me, like everyone told me He did. 


And despite my tests, I never felt it the way I wanted. You know, like that overwhelming, can't-breathe, I-feel-so-warm-and-fuzzy, feeling. 


And I finally realized that it wasn't God's fault, it was mine.


It wasn't a problem of God failing to show His love, it was me failing to recognize it. 
He already showed me his love in the truest way possible. 


Romans 5:8 
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."


In that while I was still a sinner, He died for me. 
Key words being, "still a sinner". 


I always kinda felt like that wasn't really a big deal. 


Like, yeah, a lot of people have done some really bad things, but I'm not that bad.
Yeah, I sin, but not as bad as some people. 


And I didn't understand until I realized that I am just as bad as the worst of the worst. 


Because it's all the same in God's eyes. No matter how big or small, every sin is humanity thinking that we're okay on our own, that we don't need the creator of the universe to tell us what to do. 


I am human. Like everyone else. And I am a sinner. Like everyone else. 


When I realized that, the cross became so much more incredible. 
When Christ died, I wasn't born yet. Obviously.
But He knew I would sin.
He knew every nook and cranny of my disgusting heart and still died for me. 


Would I die for someone knowing that they would deny the very fact that I died?
Would I do it knowing they would just curse my name in response?
Knowing they would speak evil against me, live contrary to everything I taught them in love, and knowing they wouldn't believe it?
Would I die for someone knowing that they were the very ones killing me?


Say, a judge is convicted of a crime and given the death sentence. 
I decide that I want to die in his place (if that were legal), knowing full well that he's guilty of the crime and deserves to die. 
Then, he is the one to sign off on my arrest and personally order my execution, maybe even execute me himself.


Now, say I knew all of this ahead of time. Would I still die for him? Would I love him so much that no matter what he did to me, I still want him to have the chance at a full and abundant life?


There's no way I would.


But Jesus did.


He died for everyone. Not just the people that believed. Not just the pastors and the missionaries and the Sunday school teacher. He died for everyone. 
The murderers.
The adulterers.
The thiefs.
The liars.
The impure.
The ungrateful.
The gossips.
The sex-slave trader.
The slave.
The disobedient.
The alcoholics.
The pornography-viewers.
The abusive.
The prideful.
The foolish.
The rich.
The poor.
Everyone.


Because He wanted every single one of us to have the chance at a full and abundant life. 
Knowing that many would deny Him, hate Him, persecute His people. Knowing that even those who do love Him, still betray, deny, and fall away.






It's not about God proving His love to us over and over, because He does, but we won't ever understand, be able to accept that love, or even see it until we realize how much we desperately need it. When we realize that, we see that it's been in front of us the whole time. And we see without a shadow of a doubt that we cannot possibly go on living without it. 




When I stopped thinking that God owed it to me to prove that He loves me, and started realizing how desperately I need that love, I saw that that very love is everywhere. 


He already went to the extremes to prove His love.
He still fights for my selfish little heart moment by moment.
He hasn't given up on me even through all the times I've given up on Him. 
That is how he shows His love, and that's all he wants us to do: be so caught up in the waves of His unfailing and perfect love that we use all our hearts, strength, and souls to love Him in return. 


This love that persists through my wandering and selfishness is so humbling. Thank you, Jesus.

Happy Easter, everyone. 

Watch and Learn

You taught me to persevere through everything.
You taught me how to say no.
You taught me to think for myself.
You taught me not to settle.
You taught me to question things.
You taught me to love people.
You taught me to forgive--others and myself.
You taught me to never give up on my dreams.
You taught me to have confidence.
You taught me to have joy through my suffering.
You taught me to never accept mediocrity.
You taught me sacrifice.
You taught me a new meaning of love.
You taught me to know what I want.
You taught me to trust.
You taught me integrity.
You taught me to find something to laugh about.
You taught me consequences.
You taught me strength.
You taught me to put others before myself.
You taught me the depths of my selfishness.
You taught me that I don't need a boyfriend, or an "interest"
You taught me to have a goal.
You taught me that people are always watching, and you don't know how they'll interpret what they see.
You taught me that first impressions form sure opinions.
You taught me no reconsider my first impressions.
You taught me not to let my emotions run away with me.
You taught me to rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.
You taught me to pray. 




We all have something to teach,
we all have somehting to learn.


Some teach through wisdom, some through actions, and some simply teach through the person that they are.


So learn. All that you possibly can because there's always something to learn. 
And you never know who you're teaching.

Cells, rocks, and sinking sand.

"Remember who you are and what you stand for"

My dad

He would say this almost every time I left the house in high school. And still does on occasion. 

He says it as a joke, of course, and I remember rolling my eyes the first time he said it thinking "of course I'm not gonna forget who I am or where I stand." 

Though he says it as a joke, I know he really means it, and I never really gave it a second thought. 

Well, what if don't know who I am or what I stand for? What if I think I do but both are so easily swayed like a blade of grass in the wind?

Back when he would say it to me the most, I definitely didn't know. 

I would leave the house one person and come home another. 

And I still do. 

I've recently been challenged, by I don't really know what, to look at myself and decide who I am, who I want to be, and what unfaltering things I stand for. 

Because if you don't know who you are, you'll become anything. And if you don't know where you stand, you'll fall.

So, I wrote down a list of who I know I am. 

And a list of who I want to be. (Which I know is boring, so if you want to see, go here: Sincerely.) 

And then I wrote down a list of what I stand for. The things I know without a doubt that I want to fight for. 

The things that keep me grounded.

The solid rocks that I build my life around, or strive to build my life around. (Which are less boring, so they'll probably have a post of their own someday.)

And it helped me so much to make the things I've been taught my whole life tangible and visible. To be able to pick and choose the things to discard and the things to keep. To have a reference of these things so I never forget again. 

I think we so easily forget. 

It's sad. We forget

who we are, 

our purpose,

and the things that keep our feet from slipping.

I forget so often. I let myself be swayed by the standards of society, or the standards of other people, and forget that I have standards of my own. Standards that I shouldn't be willing to compromise. 

I forget that each cell of my body is there for a purpose, along with each thought and emotion. I forget that my feet belong on these solid rocks and everywhere else is sinking sand. 

Remember 

who you are and what you stand for.

Because if you don't know who you are, you'll become anything. And if you don't know where you stand, you'll fall. 

Undefined, no.II

Do not let yourself be defined by the weaknesses of your flesh.

Do not let yourself be defined by the boundaries of this world.

Do not let yourself be defined by the selfishness of humanity.

Do not limit yourself by labels.

Do not let anyone tell you who you are or who you're supposed to be.

Do not let yourself be contained inside an opinion.

Do not let yourself flow with the standards of our shallow society. 

Find who you are apart from anyone or anything telling you who to be.  

"We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us."

Virginia Satir