THE PAIN OF PERFECTION
I live among my own ghosts these days.
Just a run through town takes me by the front porch I swept hundreds of chores ago and past the grocery where I spent the nickels earned on candy cigarettes.
In my mind, I watch my second grade self walking from school, arms full of colored pasted papers. There are times that I want to run out the door, take her hand and skip with her safely home, but the tug in my heart stops me. So many pieces of me remain inside those four walls. So much of me never made it out fully alive.
For even in the best of childhoods like mine, this world can inflict pain which leaves us all running for cover.
Attending Sunday School, I learned that Jesus loved me, but also discovered that a memorized Bible verse brought me approval and a smug feeling of earning more than just a star.
Among the swing sets, I found that in order to secure a party invite, I had to change my unrestrained laughter of delight to a more solemn whisper made in secret huddles.
At home, safe in my blanket fort with my best friend Eeyore, I would share my day and a pack of crackers in a heartfelt attempt to change his stitched-on frown. As my mom meticulously picked up each crumb off the floor, I scolded myself for creating such a mess.
As decades passed, I grew used to suffocating the real me with the pillow of perfection. But as soft as it may appear, to those struggling under it or resting on it; it gives no rest. For although I willingly offered the world a trade - its acceptance in exchange for whoever it needed me to be- my soul longed to be loved for who I really was.
Finally, after years exhausted by holding up my end of the bargain, the perfectly broken me heard a strangely familiar voice calling from where it all began.
Jesus.
His tender words flooded my memory and I finally understood them for what they were.
They were not my accomplishments.
They were His.
“For by that one offering He forever made perfect those who are being made holy.”
Hebrews 10:14 NLT
Jesus was the perfection and the love that I had longed for my entire life.
In Him, I am becoming who I was always meant to be - imperfect me, perfectly loved by Him.