Present Over Perfect

cards.
But he isn’t. He is love itself, grace embodied, holding
the fullness of who we are—strong, weak, good, bad, wild,
fearful, brave, silly—in his hands. He can be trusted with
every part of it, the silly and the enormous.
I’ve been a Christian who hasn’t trusted God with her
full self for a long time. I bring him my achievements. I
destroy myself for my failings—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m
sorry. But it’s only recently that I’m relearning to do what I
learned as a child: to bring my whole self, without shame
and hiding, without pushing and striving.
You cannot taste the oil until you pour out the vinegar.
And it’s okay to admit that there’s vinegar—all the small
hurts and enormous fears. You pour it out, letting the all-
powerful God who knows you and loves you see you as
you are, the scariest thing any of us can do: allow ourselves
to be seen.
I’ve been afraid to truly be seen for so many years. And
I’m relearning to let myself be seen by a holy God. Every
part, every flaw, unhidden by achievement and by shame.
It’s a hard enough thing for me to do with people. It’s a
harder thing still for me to do with God. But it changes me,
changes us, as we do it. It rearranges our molecules,
grounding us to the reality of love in a thoroughly new way.
I’ve been ungrounded for so long—attaching to
whatever I can, whenever I can, flailing around to feel
connected to something bigger than myself. I attached
cognitively to the idea of God. But I didn’t allow myself to