I’m glad to be part of the Godspace writers’ community, for we share common interests around spirituality, sustainability, and social justice. I’ve published on the Godspace site before with articles on Lent, hospitality, and other topics, and I’m glad to contribute this month on Four Gifts and self-care.

Our theme is a spirituality of imperfection, which Christine Sine describes this way:

Mixed up, broken, scarred, and flawed. That sums up all human beings. When we are willing to admit that, about ourselves and about each other, we too can learn to laugh at the mistakes and the blemishes. We no longer need to hide behind facades of seeming perfection. In the process we learn the joy of shared humanness and the delight of spiritual exploration. I suspect that the more we allow our imperfections to stick out, the more our fragrance rises as an offering before God too.

Here is my reflection in response:

Good, better, best,
never let it rest,
until the good is better,
and the better is best!

I don’t know where, why, or how I learned this little rhyme as part of my childhood, but it might explain in part why I always did well in school and why I never liked softball. For at least I knew how to spell and could work at improving, but I was never best, better, or even good at softball, so quickly gave up on it.

Now as an adult, I realize that many things in life run in the opposite direction of my childhood rhyme.

Last year on impulse I bought a beautiful fern, placed it in a bright spot away from direct sunlight as instructed, watered it dutifully not too much and not too little (or so I thought), but one by one the beautiful stalks turned brown, and one by one I removed them, until there’s now just one lone survivor. I’m not sure why my fern has been so unhappy, but it’s definitely gone from good to not-so-good and worse.

On a much more serious level, a friend has a stubborn, terminal cancer resistant to her heavy chemo treatments, and so far unyielding to our prayers for a miraculous recovery. My mother’s health declined in spite of her determined efforts, the excellent medical care she received, and all we tried to do as a family to support her.

I realize now the limits of “good, better, best, never let it rest.” I can’t make everything better by sheer will power and hard work. And rather than wearing myself out on a never-ending treadmill of perfectionism that doesn’t lead anywhere, I’m learning to practice self-care and rest in God’s care.

That’s why I think of self-care as part of a spirituality of imperfection—because self-care acknowledges our humanity. Self-care acknowledges our limited energies, our limited time, our limited strength, yet allows us to go on. And when all of my self-care strategies fail, when I fail myself and others, God remains faithful in his care for me.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
—2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Though outward progress might elude us, though we might seem to be going backwards at times, yet things are not what they seem. Inwardly, we are being renewed by God’s care day by day, and there is eternal glory ahead. So do not lose heart.