I mostly look like I don't have it all together and that's not posturing on my part - I really don't have it all together. I don't think I ever have had.
     One of my favorite quotes is:   When I was 20, I used to worry about what others thought of me.  When I was 30, I didn't care what others thought of me. And when I turned 40, I realized that people weren't thinking about me and never had been.
     Perfect people make me nervous.  That's because the older I've gotten, the more I realize that no matter how perfect you look on the outside.. you aren't.  We all have those moments when we quickly look over our shoulder to see who is watching us - and I'm not talking about shoplifting or something illegal. I'm talking about when you trip going up the stairs or you come out of the bathroom with toilet paper trailing behind your shoe.. Those Kodak moments..
     I also think most of us - maybe not the men but most of the women - have those moments when we sit down in the laundry room and just sob into the dirty clothes basket.  At least that's usually where it happens to me and I think it's because the laundry room is the one place I am guaranteed privacy:)
     And I would also have to agree with someone in my Sunday School class who was about to share a prayer request about a relative who was in some type of legal trouble- I'll never forget how he looked around before he shared and  then said, "Okay, we all have skeletons in our family closet, right?"   That was such a comfort to me because my family closet has more skeletons than Wal-Mart does  right before Halloween.  (I mean, I haven't even gotten around to blogging about my great uncle who was churched because he got drunk every Sat. night.  Apparently,  when he was called on the carpet Sunday morning for being plastered the night before, he admitted that he did wrong  but refused to promise not to ever do it again.  When I was a child, the family actually decanted that story with a touch of pride because my uncle's drinking buddy, when  called on the same  carpet for carousing, did promise to quit drinking - every Sat. night he got soused with my great uncle and every Sunday morning he promised he would never do it again.  So we kind of took the attitude that even though we had an unchurched sot somewhere in our family tree, at least he was an honest sot  :0)
     But I digress...
    The Bible has a lot to say about imperfect people.
     1.  Christ came to save them. The outcastes, the sick, the troubled - the ones who knew very well that they were flawed - flocked to him.  The ones who had prestige, power, and the appearance of perfection - didn't.
     2.  God's power is revealed in them.  Paul wrote in II Corinthians 12:9-10  that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. I like to think that means that His power is showcased in our weakness. In fact, in II Corinthians 4, Paul describes us as clay pots - fragile containers holding divine light inside.  But, if I read that right, Paul is saying that God's light only shines out of us as our pots develop fissures:) ... something most of us  pots don't want to have happen to us.
     3.  God uses them.  In II Corinthians 1:3 - 4, Paul wrote:  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort  with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  To me, that says: if you haven't been afflicted (and being afflicted means you hurt, you question, and you probably get mad too at some point in time), then  you haven't really been comforted by God (He has multiple ways to send comfort to us by the way).  And if you haven't been comforted by Him, then you really can't be used by Him to comfort others.
     So here's to imperfect people but most of all, here's to the perfect Savior who came and walked over rough, dirt roads under broiling heat in a militarily oppressed  land  in order to be what we cannot be and do what we cannot do.