It butchers bodies and strangles souls. Embezzles time and disintegrates families. Swindles dreams and advances procrastination. Inculcates fear and sedates productivity. Inoculates stress and distorts objectives. This is the pursuit of perfection… the pursuit of a faultless and unblemished state, free from defect and error. Or rather, the pursuit of the unicorn; the illusion of a perfect and peaceful phantom beast.
In this pursuit, a mass is created, analogous to a robot prototype, simulating the perfect apotheosis, yet is devoid of expression. It has us chasing a mirage, only to come up empty, and then chase again in litany, until time and breath fade… such is this pursuit. But the question remains, what is perfection? And why do we feel obliged to strive for it?
For the longest time, I hated scars. And eminently, I hated the visible scars of Jesus – the nail marks in His hands and pierce marks on His side (John 20:19–29). Why I thought to myself, should God leave Jesus with scars when God is omnipotent? Surely He could have given Jesus a new and perfect body, and perhaps even one made of gold! Why would He not do this when we, as mere mortal beings, are promised new and heavenly bodies as described in Revelation 21:1–5 and 2 Corinthians 5:1–5:
For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is destroyed (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God Himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing… we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life … (2 Corinthians 5:1–5).
The question plagued me until I finally got the revelation of the John 20:19–29. When I received this revelation, I began to grasp the veracious meanings of perfection. Sometimes perfection is imperfection. That which should be ugly, but for the alluring tale told by the scars of imperfection, is rendered perfectly imperfect. The alluring tales of the scars of the perfect imperfection is such that:
Once was a Man that loved and freely gave His life to save those that did not love Him, now the scars of His sacrifice corroborate to tell of His endless love, in ways in which words never could equate.
Because of the skeletons of our past, we should not ‘be’, (here, where we are, doing what we are doing, achieving what we are achieving, etc.) but the scars from our past certify our determination and the grace of God in ways in which words of our testimony could never parallel.
Our work and words may not be conventional, but their unconventional scars speak a poetry to which convention never could.
I should be like you, but the scars of my quirkiness tell of a brand that cannot be replicated.
Sometimes, true perfection is simply blemished perfection. Whether we seek perfection in our home, profession, social, or love life – we should know that sometimes, true perfection is the miracle of imperfection.
©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2018.
