Beauty in the Imperfections - Lessons from a 3 year old

So many times I wonder how God can love someone who continuously messes up.  I see all the things that I do or create and it never seems to come out perfect enough.  My best well made plans for how I’m going to help someone or do something new in ministry or my greatest lesson plan ever never turn out the way I would like.  I know I have had so many missed opportunities.  I look back at the things I have accomplished and I see their imperfections and hang my head and get frustrated. 

And then last Sunday I was in Sunday school class with Nathan.  Because I was holding Benjamin at the time, Nathan had to do his craft on his own.  He began coloring the people on the paper.  Some of them were colored with purple skin, many of the colors of their clothes did not coordinate, and while he did his best the colors didn’t always stay inside the lines.  He then began cutting them out, a difficult task for a three year old.  He worked diligently cutting around each person.  The lines were not cut straight and several people lost their arms during his work.  He continued working happily and glued the people to the paper in the wrong order.  Then he held up the paper and said, “Look mommy, I’m done! I did it!.”  And my eyes teared up . . .  because it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

My mother’s heart had swelled with pride and I watch Nathan work.  I loved seeing the advances he has made and I loved seeing his joy when he realized that he had completed it.  It didn’t matter to me that it was imperfect, not one bit.  At that moment, God spoke to my heart and said, “See Laura, that’s what I see when I look at what you do.” 

As we go though our lives, we will work hard at many things.  God will be there to guide us but many times our coloring will be out of place, things will be out of order, and someone might even lose some arms in our enthusiasm.  But as a proud parent, our Father is going to be looking down at our work and he is going to see something beautiful.  It might be something only a Father could love, but his is the only opinion that really matters anyhow, right?