The Back Porch

She pushed this little piece of paper across the table to within a few inches of my arm, and I wanted to stand up and walk away from it.

It was nothing. The little loop of paper used to hold the napkin, fork, and knife all together at a restaurant. She had creased it on two axes, making it into the shape of a small 4 pointed star. But it wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t quite straight. When you pressed every edge, you could see that the corners in the middle didn’t come together symmetrically. It was every so slightly imperfect, and that bothered me. It bothered me so much that I could basically feel it staring at my arm as it sat there on the table. It was screaming at me with its slight imperfection.

But to her, this imperfection was intentional. It was not meant to be fixed, nor straightened, nor tossed aside and retried. All was exactly as it should be. Its purpose was fulfilled.

I sometimes wonder why I’m imperfect. I mean, God knows what He’s doing, and yet I’m still all messed up. I’m clumsy or I’m lazy. I let small details tear my mind apart. I get easily jaded, suffer terrible shifts of my disposition. I’m arrogant and I think I know more than most people. I’m foolish, and know less than most. I have a stripe of exceptionally short hair on the back of my head that I can’t explain. I can’t even remember the first 20 years of my life.

And God made me.

This confuses me to no end. Even still, but I understand it just a bit better than I ever did before. You see, I am an imperfect fold. My edges don’t line up and I’m asymmetrical. I screw up and fall down and make mistakes as much or more than anyone else I know. But that’s all part of the plan. It is part of the purpose. I wasn’t made to be this beacon of what people are supposed to be. I was made to seek God. I was made to learn lessons and to grow and to find my way. Perfect people don’t find their way. They wouldn’t be perfect if they were somehow not on it. If a perfect person wanders off the path and remains perfect, there is only one conclusion. The path was wrong.

But I’m not that person. I make mistakes and I know that for a fact. I don’t know where my life is going, and really for that matter, I don’t know from whence it came. But every time I stumble off the proverbial path, I find out where my path isn’t. I learn something about myself and what I can or cannot do. I learn something about God and what I can and cannot understand. I learn something about the people around me or the world in which they live. It’s all part of the process to becoming who we were intended to be.

I once said to a friend about a photo I had created… it was meticulously crafted and required a great deal of time in both shooting and editing. In fact, it took nearly 10 hours for this one photo. When I told that to this friend, she asked why I would spend such a great deal of time on the photo. “You will place your nose an inch from this print, and see no error, except where error was intended.” Every spot and blemish, every shadow and highlight had its place in that photo. Even those that looked unpleasant or unseemly were perfectly intended.

When you look at me, or more importantly, when you look at yourself, know this. You will see no error, except where error was intended. It’s in those errors that God makes Himself known, and there is nothing more valuable in your entire life.