prodigal children

And then I saw it: I, too, strive for perfection. 

I hated myself but I must have loved myself, 
because all I loved in you was what I made to look like me. 

I saw it when I read the truth that had been written out for me: 

I too strive for perfection. 

This was when I saw how I anger at who you are, 
This was when I saw how I try break you, and mould you, and change you.

I thought you tried to do the same thing,
but I think that all along, you only wanted me to love you. 

I don't know why I wanted to make another me,
when you are in front of me and every part of you was sculpted and breathed into living by the Maker of us all. 

I too strive for perfection, boy. And I told you today: I haven't accepted you... because I wanted to make whatever I imagine perfect to be. 

I didn't realize that you're all these perfectly formed lines that our Maker drew and coloured and that he's always refining you.

You're this rock of glory that he's cutting into stone and you're this field of trees he's growing into maturity,

You're wildflowers and you're unpaved mountains and you're morning sun that yawns and lifts and stretches right out into sky. 

I've missed the soul and the spaces of God inside you, boy. These spaces make up your wholeness and I covered them up with marks and cuts. 

I told who you could be and who you couldn't, and I never wanted that person to be the one you were made to be. 

I am sorry. I've said I'm sorry many times,
but today I am truly sorry, boy. 

I want to know the soul and the holy spaces of God inside you. I want to watch you rise as morning sun and grow like a wildflower garden. I want to walk the unpaved paths that Papa reveals inside of you, the paths that travel into restoration and redemption and the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. 

I am asking Papa why I haven't loved you as I ought. As I was made to do. 
He asks if I know how he loves me. 

How do I think Papa loves me? 
I think it means that he wants to change me. 
I think that he loves the person that he knows I will eventually be. I think even that he sees me as the person that I will one day become. 

But I do not think he cares much for the person I am today. 

This makes me wonder if I have approached you the same way that I suppose Papa approaches me, 
as if I love and long for some future version of you. 

I have tried so hard to not want to be loved,
and approved,
and accepted,
and liked,
and wanted, 
esteemed,
and praised. 

And I failed miserably. 

Could I even confess that I have tried to live through you? That's embarrassing.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (02 Corinthians 4:16-20)

Maybe I'm always longing to be the person I ought to be, 

and maybe it's high time I believed that Papa loves even the broken me. 

Maybe that's what's kept me from the precious broken boy you are, matey. 

I didn't believe that a broken soul was worthy of love and acceptance, either mine or yours. 

A broken soul is a soul our Maker has always been in love with,

and He has shared Himself with me in you, boy.