It doesn’t have to look perfect to be perfect

It’s an oldie, but a goodie… bringing this back up for a throwback Thursday! Enjoy…

Just let go… I have heard those words over the past few months more than once.

Have you ever played the White Elephant gift exchange? If so, then you know you should be suspicious of the packages that are the most beautifully wrapped. Those amazing bows, fancy paper, and all the crafty stuff you see in magazines but can never really duplicate! More often than not those are the gifts that are the biggest joke! I began to realize that in my kids lives, I was trying to keep the wrapping all pretty. I figured if I did everything just right, like protecting them from certain exposures through media and peer influences, then the outside packaging would influence what was inside the package! So NOT so!!! As pretty as those White Elephant gifts are, the perfectly wrapped gift doesn’t change what joke lies beneath! It seemed like the more I tried to explain the whys and hows behind the choices we were making for them, the more messed up the outside packaging became. I’d try to repair the bows, and straighten the wrapping, even re-taping, but it just wasn’t working… the gift was still being shaken all over the place, and I could hear it breaking inside the box! I was so exhausted trying to keep the outside looking so perfect!

Yet, when I heard “Let Go!” I had to ask, how do I do that and still be a responsible parent? I knew as soon as I asked, what the answer was… it comes through trusting the one that designed the gift inside the package to begin with! I began seeing, that through the trials and struggles my children were facing, those events were messing up the outside packaging, and everyone could see the wrapping was crinkled and torn; the bows were all frayed and tattered… but what was happening on the inside of the package was a beautiful transformation… God was taking all of those moments when the package was being knocked and thrown around, at great risk of being shattered, and He was using those moments to refine, to shape, to prove Himself in the lives of my teens! He is making sure they have authority to speak, on behalf of their brokenness, to a world that is broken to! It’s a perfect transformation taking place in a situation which doesn’t look so perfect!

So, last night I looked at my tattered packages and smiled, because I could truly see something beautiful beyond the exterior… everything that was going on in the inside was absolutely PERFECT!

Each time He said, “My grace is all you need, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 2 Corinthians 12:9