Present Over Perfect

the center is strength, gratitude, Jesus.
I’m practicing that last part, to be honest. For reasons I
still don’t totally understand, the idea that the person of
Christ is sitting next to me, bodily, keeping me company,
breathing in and out as I do—it’s still tricky for me. And it’s
still tricky for me to hand him all my silly human concerns
—little wounds and worries, dreams and discouragements.
But I spend more and more time sitting with him, not with
the Platonic ideal of divinity, abstracted away to a safe
distance. I sit with Jesus, the human-and-divine being sent
to be with us, Emmanuel. I practice being with him. It feels
as awkward as I’m making it sound, I’m sure. It feels sort of
like if you told me a nice bunny rabbit was sitting next to
me, and it adored me, and all I had to do was tell it
everything, because the bunny is all-powerful.
I don’t mean that in any disrespectful way, of course.
I’m learning, minute by minute that I spend sitting with him,
allowing myself to be heard, my heart held, my dreams
known. We’re in uncharted territory now, so I don’t know
exactly how things shift from here, but I’m finding that my
ability to sit with Jesus makes me more present and
connected with Aaron, with my boys. As I create space and
imagination within myself to be heard by the actual person
of Christ, my capacity to hear the people I love is
increasing. And my sense of strength, deep inside myself,
grows and grows.
So much of life seems to be about reclaiming. Creativity,
of course, is so easy and natural for children, and most