Good morning…
After reading yesterday’s blog God’s Grace With Skin On, my writer-friend wrote: “I read your blog with tears of joy and gratefulness. God really does make beauty from ashes. He used your extraordinary skills to transform what I felt was ugliness into something for His Kingdom. Sometimes people need to see an honest exchange like we had in order to see what the Christian walk looks like among friends. We are not always perfect. We will let each other down. But we learned grace from the best. Amazingly, God has used this to deepen our friendship and I love you even more.”
So I wrote back to my old writing buddy: “God’s timing is so interesting. Below is a portion of the teaching notes I created and just sent to our class of forty young moms, recapping the first week of our study of Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection: ‘Imperfection is bolded on our cover. What does imperfection mean? A fault. A blemish. An undesirable feature. Her synonyms are flaw or defect, deformity or discoloration. These are words we do not like, these are parts of ourselves we try to hide. In addition, the concept of imperfection flies in the face of this verse in scripture: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48, NIV). Our book title seems to contradict the Bible, until we dig a bit deeper.
“Teleios” is the greek word for perfect. “Teleios” means to complete. To mature. To be brought to its intended end, finished. We are invited to become full grown in our God-given identity as God is full grown. The Amplified Bible translation of the passage incorporates this concept. You, therefore, will be perfect [growing into spiritual maturity both in mind and character, actively integrating godly values into your daily life], as your heavenly Father is perfect.
So, our unavoidable imperfections teach us this truth: God is not finished with us yet. There are more facets of us for the LORD to mature. Gradually, we are being brought to spiritual completion as the unique human beings God has designed us each to be. Our imperfections point to the interior places where God is at work transforming us right now.’
It is so much fun to remain bonded in friendship as God makes immense beauty from our imperfect ashes!”
Concluding our computer-conversation she replied: “This addendum speaks to me as much as the original blog. It used to daunt me that I would never be able to be perfect for God, but now I feel excited about constantly learning and maturing — and God has used you mightily to do that for me.”
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns (Philippians 1:6, NLT).
…Sue…
