Around this time last year, I went to my first ever worship rehearsal. I was nervous. I definitely wasn’t “qualified.” And I wondered if I was crazy, because I usually prefer working behind the scenes. It’s why I write and edit way more than I speak. And honestly, it’s why I edit more than I write. I am an introvert and a deep feeler. Putting myself out there in any way is hard. Opening myself up—letting people see who I am with the potential to criticize anything about me—is excruciating. Because if you say it to me once, I’ll say it to myself a thousand times. 

Anyone else feel this? I mean, we live in world that entices us to be perfect, and in those very same messages convinces us we aren’t.

It has taken so much time and healing and so many loving, supportive people to help me realize I have a voice worth being heard. That I can not be the best and still be worth it. That I can be learning, be a work in progress, and still be worth it. God’s Word teaches this truth from the first page, and yet I’m still grappling to understand it: You do not have to be perfect to be worthy of love. 

If that were true—if we had to be perfect to be loved—what a dismal life it would be. Because there are a lot of lovely, wonderful people out there, but not a one who’s perfect. 

So, I want you to hear me loud and clear as I metaphorically—since 6-feet of distance is currently required—take your face in my hands, look you in the eyes, and say: You are loved. Right here. Right now. Where you are, as you are, in this very moment. You are loved. 

Learning and growing is part of life. It is good and right and holy. But scrambling after an ever-changing image of perfection? It’s unhealthy and, I dare to say, unholy. 

But, friends. We’re pursuing the wrong kind of perfection. We seek perfection in ourselves—our relationships, our health, our careers, and the list goes on. 

I’m not the best writer. And I’m certainly not the best vocalist. I’m not the best Christ follower. I’m not the best wife or family member or friend. I’m not the best, and I never will be. I think there will always be a little fear, a little excitement in the anticipation. There will always be a little pain in the growing. 

But what if I told you that you don’t need to be perfect because you are covered by the grace of the only living, breathing Perfection we will ever know? We search in a million different places to find what only He can see. 

Instead of seeing where I’ve failed or just how completely imperfect I am, or even how hard I’ve tried to do, say, or accomplish all the right and good things—God looks at me and sees Jesus. He sees His fingerprints all over my life from Jesus’ eternal work on my behalf—not just from where He has molded and shaped me into the woman I am. He doesn’t see a woman who’s perfect, but a woman perfectly covered by His Son, who is the very embodiment of perfection.

The Son He loves, the Son He sent from heaven to earth to live a perfect life and then to die for us. The perfect Son of God who lives and died for imperfect humans so we can live with Him in perfect peace. 

You don’t have to do everything perfectly. Rest now. It is done—it is finished—in Him.