Published at Family Christian.
It wasn’t wrong. A hard thing happened to someone I cared for, and I jumped at the opportunity to help ease the burden. My actions were pure, rooted in offering the hands and feet of Jesus. But invisible to even me, revealed years later, sat a quiet longing.
I’d carried a deeply held hope for an unconditional, door-always-open-heart connection—a place where I’d feel at home. And to find that place, I thought I had to be perfect.
Ever since I prayed Jesus into my heart at age five, I’d been living out three commandments:
Be perfect.
Earn Jesus.
Earn others.
And so, as one does in extended periods of self-reliance, I hit a wall. The collision came when I discovered that sometimes, no matter how much strived-for perfection you offer, that kind of love won’t be earned.
Earning a place by being perfect is a lie.
Limping across that finish line of striving brought with it an invitation to re-evaluate the three commandments I’d been living. As I pulled at that loose string of lies, I heard whispers of truth waiting in the unraveling. I love you. I choose you. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to earn Me.
Read the rest at Family Christian.
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