The Sacred Imperfect

Yikes. I have not blogged in so long that i had forgotten my password. Slacker? yes. Mom of toddler and newborn much? yes.

Well, newborn’s not a newborn anymore. Technically, TECHNICALLY, he should be sleeping through the night now (insert riotous laughter from all of mom-dom here…) and my life should be back to “normal.”
Trouble is, there’s a new standard of normal in my life now, and i have a feeling that will continue to evolve over the next 18 years or so. So i figure i’d better get used to that idea and just adjust my worldview accordingly.

For instance, i need to learn that there’s never a “perfect” time or moment to start something. To get back to the gym, to take a much-needed retreat, to start writing again… In fact, perhaps “perfect” is a word i should take out of my vocabulary altogether. If something matters to you, you just have to do it. things like writing, exercising, prayer…if you wait until you’ve got time, you’ll never have time. If you do it when you can, as well as you can, it becomes self-sustaining. Pray for more time to pray. Work out for 10 minutes, and the next day you might have the energy for 15. And write a line here or there, even if it’s not publication-worthy. We do these things because they feed us, and because we get all shriveled up inside (well, and in some cases, on the outside too) if we wait forever for that perfectly cleared block on our schedule.

Meanwhile, giving ourselves the grace to do the things that matter, even if we don’t always do them well, is good for the soul. Giving up our notions of perfect leaves alot of room for the Spirit to take us someplace we maybe forgot we were trying to go. It’s like creating a little bit of desert around you. If you can learn to take even the smallest piece of yourself out of the equation, there’s some space for the Holy to take shape there.

So, here’s what ima do. I’m going to probably burn some dinners in the next few years, but i’ll still manage to feed and eat with my family. I will write some short blogs with run-on sentences and paragraphs, but I’ll still nurture that writer-self that screams at me if it doesn’t get out every so often. I’ll do the pilates 10-minute solutions and accept that skinny jeans come in larger sizes, too. And I’ll probably say some quick and anxious prayers, but i reckon God will hear me anyway, and somehow show me how to be still again. My new normal will be just as abnormal as the old one, i’m sure.  But hopefully i’ll learn to quit reaching for perfect, to quit waiting for normal, and find a little more blessing in all the space that’s leftover.