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| me on my sad, bad hair day |
I keep getting messages from the culture to be perfect:
“Have the perfect body.”
“Wear the perfect clothes, and look perfect.”
“Get the perfect job and career.”
“Be the perfect mom....oh, and make sure your kids are perfect too!”
“Live in the perfect house.”
“Marry the perfect man....oh and be the perfect wife!”
I’m sick of feeling constrained to be perfect. I feel smothered and stifled when I am forced and pressured to conform to all of these unreasonable expectations.
I hate the feeling of not being perfect. I don’t like to see people with fit and firm abs, while my poofy muffin top bellybutton is all wrinkled and distorted. Sure, I have 4 beautiful kids as a result of the sequential pregnancies, but now my body is---gasp--not perfect! (I was tempted to post a proof photo of this, but I can’t bare it).
I fight feelings of jealousy or comparison at seeing women looking all made-up and perfect, while I am just trying to get my 4 kids out of bed, dressed and fed. Woops! I forgot to look in the mirror! Once my friend even caught me wearing slippers at the pick-up for school. And hair? Make-up? That is only for my best days, when I am feeling the capacity to actually prepare myself.
The message for many modern Western women is to get the perfect career, and to keep up with the home and family too. If you are able to do this, then I applaud you! Wow, that is just amazing. For me, I am at the stage of having kids age 7, 6, 4 and 2, so this one is just out of the question for me to try to attain.
But then, the temptation to be the perfect mom sneaks up. I come and go from social media, many times truly rejoicing (click: “like” and “love”!) in what my friends and “friends” are posting. Yet, on my down days, I cannot click the “Instagram” or “Facebook” aps, because I know I will be tempted to compare myself and get discouraged.
I know I am not the perfect mom, but I am even more confident that my kids are not the perfect kids! Oh, the shame I fight when I encounter judgmental looks from others, or even actual negative comments. How hard it is not to absorb them as my own failures or imperfect identity.
Single and engaged women may think they will find the perfect man, but all the married and formerly married people know there is not such a man (bless our husbands for loving the imperfect woman!). And I don’t think there is a perfect house either, or else there wouldn’t be so many Americans moving all the time and doing home renovations every year.
There must be something better than all this. Something that really satisfies.
Today while I was looking into the mirror of the Bible and studying snapshots of Scripture, I saw something amazing!! Something more beautiful than any picture I had seen in a while! I gazed at the reflection of myself, but not in the bathroom mirror. It was absolutely stunning!
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| (photo: google images) |
It all started in Hebrews 7, when I was trying to untangle the theological knots about the priesthood. As I memorized verses 11-19, that is when it popped out:
“If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood...why was their still need for another priest to come?”
and verse 19:
“for the law made nothing perfect...”
There it was! Perfection! Sure enough, people throughout all time and history have tried to make themselves perfect through religion or through following the law.
Even worse than feeling cultural pressure to be perfect, is the religious pressure in some circles to act perfect or to pretend we have it all together spiritually.
But here it says clearly, that we cannot find perfection through the law. We can never follow the law perfectly, and we can never draw near to God on our own, because of our sin. God is holy, and we do not love him perfectly with our whole hearts.
The astounding light blazed in truth when I read this about Jesus:
“He is able to save completely those who come to God through him...he is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.”
Hebrews 7.25-26
This is it! The perfect man! The perfect priest! And he, only he, can save us perfectly from our sin! It is because we are not holy, but he is holy. We are sinners, and he is set apart from sinners.
There is that word again: PERFECT:
“..the Son...has been made perfect forever.” Hebrews 7.28 (see also 5.9).
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| (photo: google images) |
“How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we may serve the living God!” Hebrews 9.14
Easter is approaching, and this is something to celebrate! Let this truth soak in the next time you look at your blemishes in the morning mirror, or the next time you feel guilty for messing up again, or the next time you try to be perfect through your own work or through religion.
Jesus suffering on the cross, pouring out his blood for our sin, cleanses us! He offered himself unblemished so that we could be made perfect for all time!
No wonder I was feeling smothered by the lies of the culture! It was polluted perfection--is there such a thing!? “The law...can never..make perfect those who draw near to worship.” Hebrews 10.1
Oh, how refreshing is the Gospel!
This was all stunning beauty to me, as I gazed at the perfect High priest, Jesus, made perfect through his suffering.
But there is MORE! Can it be so?! It was like a double take in a mirror after you just had a make-over, or like a bride studying her reflection in the floor-length mirror just before her entrance. “Is this really ME??”
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| Me, a bride, my best day |
“By one sacrifice he has made perfect for all time those who are being sanctified.” Hebrews 10.14
What?! Astounding! Through Jesus I am already made perfect! This is fabulous news! And this is for all time--forever! No more trying, it’s a done deal!
We don’t have to try to be perfect through looks, body, marriage, home, kids, career or religious works. We who look to Christ in faith already are perfect because his righteousness is counted to us!
“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5.25-27
Think of it! I already have the perfect clothes: “He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.” Isaiah 61.10
We who are in Christ are promised the perfect bodies: “The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed!” 1Cor. 15.53
He is preparing the perfect Home for us: “God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” (Heb. 11.16 & just read Revelation 21!).
And if this sounds like a Cinderella fairy-tale, then I invite you to put on the lenses of faith and gaze into the reality found in the Bible that we shall soon see with our own eyes. All of these things are just a shadow of the greater things to come!
There’s nothing wrong with having nice clothes, make-up, hair, house, family, or whatever else. Just let those things be pointers to the beauty found in Christ.
And when the perfect life we wish for isn’t coming, let us set our hope on the perfect Son of God--Jesus-- who actually is coming again, and who clothes us with his perfection.
“The church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.”
Hymn by Samuel John Stone
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| my wedding kiss: a shadow of the Wedding to come |
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