The Beauty of Imperfection
Sometimes life knocks us off our feet. Sometimes we don’t understand our own reactions to little things. But what if those little things are coming from somewhere much deeper? What if they come from something that happened long ago? A time when you were too young to know what to do with the pain?
Just this past Christmas, I sat in a church pew on Christmas Eve and felt a crushing weight hit my heart. The worship had finished. The lights went low. A short video began. There were children laughing, talking to their parents about what they wanted for Christmas, and what Christmas meant to them. Sweet children. Happy families. And not one word about Jesus.
My heart sank. Are we not here to celebrate our King?
The tears came and I couldn’t stop them. I would have left if my family hadn’t driven. I stayed. And to the pastor’s credit he brought it around beautifully. He used that video to open a door to the real meaning of Christmas. But the feeling that hit me first was not small. It was old. And it was mine.
Why would something like that undo me? I think I know why.
I grew up in a commune where birthdays were not celebrated. No one’s. Not Christmas, not Easter, not any holiday that belonged to the outside world. The only day that mattered was the cult leader’s birthday, since he claimed to be Christ Jesus himself. That day brought a whole week of celebration.
When he died, I was two years old. Slowly, carefully, life began to look more like the world outside. And when I was twelve, the leadership decided to celebrate all the January birthdays together. There were at least five of us. My stepfather was one. So was I. My birthday is January 2nd. His was January 28th.
They held a big celebration. Members came together. There were gifts and well-wishes and attention. And as the party wore on, I could feel it shifting. It was mostly for my stepfather. I got nothing.
The next day my mother came to me smiling, holding a card. “A birthday card!” she said, excited. It was late, and I thought, at least I got one. I reached for it, already smiling. She pulled it back.
“You didn’t think that was for you, did you? It’s for your father.”
She looked at me with disgust. And that look took something from me.
From that year on, I was physically ill every January 2nd. My birthday was always the first day back at school after the Christmas holiday. Everyone would talk about what they got for gifts and I had nothing to say. Most years I didn’t receive Christmas gifts either. When we did get something, my stepfather couldn’t wait, so we’d receive a small gift before December 18th, weeks before Christmas Day. I stopped going to school on my birthday. My body simply refused.
Somewhere in my forties, I told myself to put my big girl pants on. And I did. The years got easier. But the pain doesn’t disappear — it finds other ways to move through you. I forget my grandchildren’s birthdays every year. Every single year. They are patient with me. They laugh softly and remind me their birthday is coming. My grandson is 21 now, and this year, for the first time, I remembered his birthday on my own. May 5th. Without looking it up.
There are still cracks. I won’t pretend otherwise.
But here is what I’ve come to understand about those cracks: God uses them. That night in church when the tears came, I wasn’t falling apart over nothing. I was feeling something real. It was His birthday and they were talking about Santa Claus? Someone who never died for anyone? Someone whose blood was never shed them? I know what it feels like to be in a room where the celebration belongs to someone else. To be present and overlooked. And so, it seems, I notice when it happens to Jesus.
The Japanese art of kintsugi repairs broken pottery with gold. The breaks are not hidden. They are honored, filled with something precious, and what was shattered becomes more beautiful for having been broken.
I am not polished. I am not perfect. But I am filled.
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