"Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are NOW in the mess of our lives. Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we LET GO of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God's being present in the mess of our unfixedness."
- Michael Yaconelli from the book "Messy Spirituality"
I was so touched by this description of accepting our flaws, letting go of a search for perfection, and seeking God (or a Higher Power) in the mess of my life. I was raised in the church my entire life, but found the dogma and stringent requirements extremely difficult to balance with my worldview. When I began recovery in earnest, I began striving to find a new sort of faith that would allow me to connect with God on terms that were more my own, and less dictated by two thousand years of bureaucracy. I feel like I have developed a wonderful relationship with my God as I walk this path and work on myself, but I still find myself struggling--daily--with the idea of letting go and/or needing to chase perfection. If I fail to be gentle with myself, if I find myself attempting to control everyone and everything around me, surely I must be failing not only in my recovery efforts but spiritually, since I am supposed to be more reliant on God in those situations and less on myself. Instead, this quote reminds me that being a mess, being broken and flawed and imperfect is not only acceptable but inevitable, and that seeking God is much more important than seeking perfection in myself--and thank God for that, because I am pretty much perfectly imperfect.
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"Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God's being present in the mess of our unfixedness."
Part of my disease of codependency is that I felt that I always had to be perfect to compensate for the other people in my life. I had to be the best student, daughter, employee and wife possible. Letting go of this perfectionism and letting God take care of the rest is frightening and yet so liberating! There's so many wonderful things I could do with my time and energy if I wasn't worrying about being everything to everyone.
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