December 19
This is a shell Riley found on a Florida beach several years ago. Actually that's not true. A woman 20 steps ahead of us found it first. She rinsed it in the waves and turned it over in her hand before tossing it aside. Riley waited a few seconds before racing over. Without even examining the shell, he picked it up and shoved it into his pocket.
A few minutes later the woman found another shell. She looked it over for a few seconds and tossed it aside. Again, Riley swooped in. This time she looked back and saw him
picking up her rejects.
“I’ve been coming here for years,” she said. “You can do so much better.” She pointed out the tiny pitting and even tinier barnacles attached to our/her find.
“Hold out and you'll find the perfect shell," she said.
I smiled and thanked her for the advice before she returned to her pursuit of perfection. She was carrying a grocery bag. It was empty. A few days later we saw her again. Same beach. Same empty bag.
It took me years to realize just how crippling the pursuit of perfection was in my life. When they were little, Riley and Kate thought the old man perfect. They know better now. Boy, do they know.
But here's the rub: Even after measuring the good, the bad and the absolute ugly in me, Marcia, Riley, Kate still love me. A few years ago Riley half-jokingly described me as "perfect-ish." In Psalm 103, David reminds me why God is so worthy of our blessings:
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Prayer: Gracious God, thank you for a love as wide and deep as the ocean itself. Thank you for accepting my messy, imperfect, barnacled self, and putting me in your bag.
Robert Bell
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