What To Do When Your Imperfection Stares You Down

We stood at the counter and my cheeks flushed red. How could I be here on the wrong day? I don’t do that. I don’t get things like this wrong. Imperfection isn’t my thing. I’m not that person.

But today I was.

And I didn’t like it.

So I got mad. Not at anyone in particular (although my husband sure felt it). I was just mad. It’s funny how a little mistake can remind us of our imperfection even more than a big mistake. I don’t like to be reminded.

Sitting in the car I stewed quiet. The emotions pounding my insides begging me to lay down in defeat. And the one thing I wanted, the one thing I needed to end the assault was the one thing I couldn’t quite grasp.

I needed grace.

I thought God’s grace felt like an umbrella. There I was standing on the edge, trying to grab a corner of someone else’s covering. I stood there getting more frustrated at the fact that my shoulder was sheltered but the rest of me was soaked.

The thing I never realized is that God’s grace was never the umbrella, it was the rain all along.

Sometimes I hold so tight to my ideas about life, about faith, about God that I forget how flawed my ideas can be. That realization can send me back to my frustration with my humanity or it can send me to stand in the rain to be drenched in grace.

I have a choice.

And suddenly I want to be soaked more than I want to be right.