A Great Gift
My master's thesis in graduate school was written to help people create a "biblical” family experience. My whole identity as a human being was built around that premise and purpose. It was my obsession. The counseling ministry I ran was actually called THE WORD ON YOUR FAMILY.
Like most of us in the first half of life, I was devoted to and passionate about my life’s “calling”. I had a lot of good answers for my followers and clients, and let them know that while I was far from perfect, something above average (and who wants to be average?) and something beyond the normal human experience (and who wants to be just human?) was possible if we kept up the good fight. Those actual words never fell from my lips, but the strong implication was that a spiritual ideal for the family approaching perfection was possible.
How did I miss the fly in the ointment? I was naïve at best, presumptuous at worst—that I could lead sincere and trusting couples into marital nirvana.
Like many people I know, I invested most of the years between 25 and 65 working hard to overcome my defects and disappointments. To be successful.
In spite of the bumps and bruises along the way, I remained determined to get it right, overcome and heal the shortcomings, wounding and failures of my parents, to pull off the family of my dreams and raise children with far less emotional baggage than their dad.
The great irony is that such persistent striving feeds and fuels the very dissatisfaction we want to escape. There’s never enough. It’s never quite right. Acceptance and deep contentment feel as if we’re “settling” for something less than God’s best, not the destination, the safe harbor we were created for.
I know better now. I’m on a different path. After becoming disillusioned with many outcomes of life—the prefix dis means to come apart from and it felt like I was falling apart—I started learning to accept the dysfunction I was constantly resisting and slowly came to embrace my incurable flawedness as A Great Gift.
Our own defectiveness or brokenness is not the enemy—it’s just the way it is. Not something to get around or overcome or ignored or even forgiven, but the very framework in which we are found, deeply loved and accepted by Him. Please think about that for a while.