For a long, long, long, long time it really bothered me that I am imperfect. Oh man, how it harrowed my soul. I spent a good deal of time my first year of marriage being a grump because Spouse-the-Ever-Lovin'-Patient-Boy-Who-Was-Pretty-Darn-Fine-With-Me-Being-Me-and-Just-Might-Have-Been-Clued-In-Before-We-Were-Married was seeing all my dag-blasted faults. I much preferred to believe that anyone that wasn't me thought of me as perfect and awesome and altogether amazing with absolutely nothing to improve upon.
And what's going to happen to a girl like that?
Easy.
Embarrassing stuff. Humiliating stuff. Knock off that hard block sort of stuff.
Just to brush the surface, every time we've moved to a new state, which we do lots, I get asked to play the piano for church. I've been in a lot of congregations desperate for a pianist - D-E-S-P-E-R-A-T-E. And so they've asked me to play.
A typical Sunday goes like this: plink, plink, PLUNK...I mean ploonk...or plink, plink, plink, plink, PLAT, oh darn, plink. Sigh.
I've played a fourth verse when there were only three. I've had my small children come to the piano with me and add a note or two. I've played post-lude music while the first counselor was doing his best at the podium to get my attention so he could give the announcements. And of course there was the never-to-be-forgotten episode where Sidekick Sister screamed for me through an entire verse until a merciful soul took her from the chapel. I once escaped the piano and led the music instead and got one of those coughs in my throat that grabs a hold so violently that you can't breath for whole gobs of seconds at a time. And then when you do get a breath it sounds like a final breath gasp and you heave back into another coughing fit. Your eyes water, your cheeks turn red, and everybody says under their breath, "Oh dear." And the only thing to cure it is a drink of water. I had to leave the song after the first verse. For most of the congregation, one second I was there, the next second they looked up and I'd vanished real creepy-like.
Oh, I've known my embarrassing moments.
But it's good.
Now that I've been dunked like a principal at the school carnival in my own imperfection, I'm kind of comfortable with it. I'm kind of ok with other folks noticing it. I'm especially ok with other folks noticing it and liking me anyways.
And isn't it true that we usually like people more when we know they're not perfect? It kind of takes the pressure off of ourselves to be spotless and it also kind of gives us an opening to help them - to be a part of their life, to let them shape us and us shape them and be something that is a better all-around shape.
I've been thinking about my imperfections today - my ones that are a little bigger than being a goofy ward pianist. It is Easter and so I've been telling my kids over and over that Jesus came to the Earth to take away all our mistakes and bad choices. And that he did that, that he makes it so I can keep working at my faultiness with hope instead of embarrassing despair, makes me really happy...or maybe content is the word...or at peace...maybe confidently at peace.
So take that imperfection (big muscle flex), you don't scare me anymore. In a weird way, I even kind of like you.
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