Perfectly Imperfect

I’ve been restless this week.  Nothing is going on to make me feel this way; at least not in an outward sense.  Yet, here I am, wrestling with this unrest in my soul that wakes me for hours each night and nags that place in the back of my brain throughout the day.  It sits like a rock in the pit of my stomach.

I like to pretend that I don’t know where this is coming from.  For a while, I believe myself.  It just feels easier to bury the truths flirting with my conscience thought.  The chatter of this world is happy to help me stick my head in the sand. I would rather scroll mindlessly thorough Facebook than deal with the tugging of my soul.

I know God is challenging me to do some things he put in my heart literally years ago.  I have spent the last ten plus of those years explaining to him why I am definitely not the girl for the job. There are many reasons why I have so easily procrastinated and discounted his voice, but they all come down to not feeling good enough.  Putting myself in a vulnerable position seems so foolish.  Why would I open myself up to the possibility- the absolute likelihood- of failing in a very big and very public way? Bad idea. 

If someone wants to find fault they will not even break a nail digging for dirt.  Actually, I am one of those people seemingly born without a filter.  I think it, I say it.  I end up telling on myself before anyone has a chance to figure out I am a hot mess on their own.  I am impulsive.  I’m emotionally driven.  I sin in my anger with biting words.  I have absolutely lost my cool at times; like Exorcist crazy person lost it.  I have been lazy, selfish, and judgmental. 

The worst part about all of this is that I can justify bad behavior-sin- with the best of them.  Lost my cool? My husband pushed my buttons.  Gossiped?  Everyone needs to vent!  Potty mouth? I can’t help it because I am around it so it just comes out.  The list goes on. 

On top of all of my shortcomings, I am a quirky girl.  I see the world through my own set of glasses, it seems.  I am too loud, too transparent, just altogether too much!  I can remember being aware of this way back in kindergarten.  I felt weird and unlovable.  That view of myself took root in my earliest memories.  I was too much, yet never enough.

How can this girl be the same girl God wants to use?  There must be a mistake.  Doesn’t all of this discount my credibility?  Maybe if I no longer struggled with these things, then I could rise above the very human, not good enough self I wake up to each day.  My testimony would be stellar!  But as things stand, I tend to need daily do-overs in my Christian walk. 

But then again, maybe that’s the point.  My struggles and failures and my absolute need for God’s grace are the story.  If it is about me trying to get it right all on my own while navigating this crazy, upside down world, my life is doomed to be a vicious cycle with no real purpose. 

What if my story is the hot mess girl who is also a beautiful work in progress being shaped day by day by the very one who created her?  What if all those failures and quirks serve a purpose?  What if other girls secretly -or not so secretly- struggle with the same things?  What if those girls can see the love and light of a God who loves me in spite of me? 

Feeling completely naked and vulnerable is hard.  It’s scary.  But I don’t have to figure it all out at once.  I just have to do a little and then a little more, trusting that God will finish what he has started.  I do not come with credentials, advanced education, or connections.  I do come with a promise to be real and transparent and to do my best to share what God wants me to share.  My hope is that you will also share your thoughts, feelings, struggles, and encouragements as God nudges you.