The Perfect Storm

This morning was to be an important moment in the life of my oldest daughter. She would take a step in her faith journey by receiving her first Bible at church. First thing, I worked to have my family out the door on time. The girls were in new dresses, everyone's hair was just so. Then AP lost it in the car over a missing book and everything tumbled apart. My nerves were on edge, my patience nonexistent.
We parked and made it inside only for it to get worse. I accidentally hit AP on the head with a door in my attempt to square away MP's belongings in the nursery before service began. She started to cry. I could get into more detail, and there was more, but basically I raised my voice at her and dragged her upstairs towards the sanctuary. What's worse, I blamed her for the accident.
There are so many excuses I could give for how this happened. Some would show you how I got to the point I did. But none of them really matter. What matters is that my quest for the way I thought the picture of this morning should look like turned me into a monster.
How often do we work for perfection and in the process miss the point?
I wanted both of my girls to be beautiful, with no tears on their faces or wrinkles in their dresses. I wanted smiles. I wanted my husband to miraculously decide not to take the last few minutes at home to himself like he always does, to do more than feed the kids breakfast and buckle them into their car seats (which he did).
Meanwhile, how did I look? There I was, yelling at my child in public, snapping at my husband when he tried to intervene.
I'll tell you how I looked. Ugly. Anything but the perfection I was striving for.
Later, during worship time, a line in a song hit me over the head:
"I want to love you when the blood in my veins doesn't know how to."
Blood in my veins. I'll tell you, the blood in my veins was running hot today. There wasn't much love going on in there.
So how do we love God, and in turn others, when the blood in our veins is so....human. How do we love like a perfect God when we are so imperfect? How do we love in those moments (and you know we all have them).
I think we start by acknowledging that He first loved us. And does now. I am humbled beyond words that God loved me through the poor decisions I made this morning. If He could love me through that, shouldn't I be able to love my family better than I do? If He could love me when I failed so miserably, shouldn't I do better next time?
Ah, there it is. His love, His grace, should drive us to do just that. To strive for perfection. But not our idea of perfection. Do you think God cares who wore what this morning? Do you think he cares whether AP's face was tear stained or her hair was combed? Surely not. God wants us to come to Him as we are. No primping beforehand, just raw and real and honest. That is the point. And as we do, and we experience His love, we are drawn towards a more perfect life. A life perfect because of and through Him.
There simply is no other way.