.: questions of completeness :.

I often find myself questioning my own completeness as an individual. What more would it take to be a "better me"? What exactly is that image impressed upon my soul? And even more, what (or who) is informing that ideal of who it is that I aim to be? What does the accomplishment of perfection even feel like? I doubt I could ever find someone to speak to such a completed event in his or her own life. I just know that deep within my heart, something keeps itself busy with the task of always informing me of how I continually come up short. The reality is that I am surrounded with men and women in the same predicament, though every one of us has silently committed at some level to never letting anyone catch on to that truth at work in their own souls. Everyone keeps coming up short, in so far as we compare ourselves to the latest and greatest. Faults, failures, fears, and frustrations. They all bear themselves as markers of our movement towards what we might hope to be. Or are they witnesses to our being made in the image of the Son? I long to find the rest that comes with knowing that I am fully who He intended me to be. That perfecting work bears a weight upon me that I could not survive on my own. I long to be complete, and live a life that yearns for wholeness. We all can sense that ache within our hearts even now. The only thing that separates you from me is what we have chosen to do with that throbbing pain. Compensation is the easy way out, the way that will silence the feelings that woo us away from obedience. Unfortunately, we have succeeded in disconnecting holiness from happiness, preaching that we can either choose one or the other. When did we first fail to see that to place our hope fully in the Father, and to live as residents of His eternal Kingdom, was the place of what stands as our greatest source of enduring joy? The truth remains that only He can satisfy us fully. Those ever-deepening gaps, those missing pieces, those places that I work so hard to make up for - those are the very spaces that the Son of God longs to fulfill and bring meaning to. He truly is more than enough for me. And when I choose to remain in Him, resting in His work and in His presence, I am complete. I am full. I am whole. What was once shattered has been restored. The story of my tarnished glory concludes in divine completion, something that I could never undo. It is not a girl. It is not a job. It is not achievement. It is not resourcefulness. It is not human strength or a title by which to exalt myself. It is the person of Jesus Christ. He and He alone restores us to what we were intended to be at the dawn of Creation. Thank God, it isn't left up to me. I seem to only succeed at making a larger mess!