Present Over Perfect

us was how to feel ashamed. For many years, my spiritual
life was one more place to measure up and be found
wanting.
This awareness of love, though, this sense of the soul’s
worth, not because of my own doing but because of God’s
great love—this changes everything. For the first time in my
life, my faith is the softest part of my life, the most healing,
most life-giving space in my heart. Instead of one more
thing to do or try or fail at, my relationship with God is the
force of love that heals up all the other bruised and broken
parts. Prayer is the safest, most nurturing activity I practice,
almost like sitting in the sun, face tilted up, or imagining
yourself as a child, crawling up into the lap of a treasured,
trusted grandparent.
I can hardly believe my fingers as I type this. I left
behind all the lovey-dovey Jesus-is-my-boyfriend business
years ago. I had signed on to be a soldier, tough and
faithful, bandaging my own wounds, not running to God for
every little bump or bruise. But acting tough for too long
makes the soft tissue of your heart start to toughen as well. It
severs your relationship to your soul, little by little, till you
find yourself doubting the importance of something as woo-
woo as a soul in the first place.
In three of the four Gospels, Jesus asks, “What good is it
for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
This is another one of those verses that I’ve read so many
times over the years but has gained so much new meaning
and weight in this season. “The whole world” is essentially