Not Perfect, Just New

 

From Nadia Bolz-Weber

Jesus didn’t look very impressive when he was resurrected Jesus still had the dirt from his own tomb under his nails. Of course, the depictions in churches of the risen Christ never showed dirt under his nail.s It’s as if he needed to be tided up so he looked more impressive and no one would be offended by the Truth.

I would have never agreed to work for God if I believed God was interested in trying to make me nice or even good; instead, what I subconsciously knew was that God was never about making me spiffy. God was about making me new.

And new doesn’t always look perfect. New is often messy. New looks like recovering alcoholics. New looks like reconciliation between family members who don’t actually deserve it. New looks like every time I manage to admit I was wrong and every time I manage to not mention when I am right. New looks like every fresh start and every act of forgiveness and every moment of letting go of what we thought we couldn’t live without and somehow living without it anyway. “New” is the thing we never saw coming, never even hoped for, but ends up being what we needed all along.

God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig ourselves through our violence and our lies and our selfishness and our arrogance and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life, over and over.

I am a Certified Professional Coach and I hold a degree from Lamar University in Speech and a Master’s from the University of Texas. I married Sam after raising three children as a single mother. I was an educator in regular and special education for twenty years, finishing my professional career as a Braille teacher. In 2007 I founded SMORE for Women. SMORE is a nonprofit association whose goal is Single Moms, Overjoyed, Rejuvenated, and Empowered. My stories have been published in several Christian books and magazines. My Website.