“Imperfections make it real.” As I heard these words, I thought of two things: first, a sweet memory of Matt telling me how much he loved me along with all of my imperfections; not only the scars on my physical body but also on me. You know the scars he sees but no one else does. Yes that is extremely comforting to know. I am extremely blessed. Second, the “memories” of the events of Jesus that I have read about and placed to memory where He went through hardships, problems, mocking, grief, frustration, sadness, and all of these He worked through by faith in His God, His Father. The “memories” of the events of the physical scars upon Jesus’ body as He had been slapped, punched, bruised, the hairs of His beard falling as they pulled them out, as the shackles around His wrists and ankles caused bruises, lacerations and larger cuts, the blood spraying the ground as His once perfect body became overwhelmed as each whip by the cat of nine tails hit Him repeatedly, as He attempted to carry His own cross (wood from the very tree He helped create) but under the weight of everything He was carrying (not just the cross) He collapsed to His knees (which is where we best fight all of our battles 🤔) those precious knees which became bruised, the shame of being stripped of His clothes which revealed His badly beaten body, His cleansing blood that ran down and the crown of thorns piercing His holy head (God is the Godhead), the sound as the large stakes (nails) were being hammered through His healing hands and His bare, rough feet which walked countless miles, the blood/water that poured from His side as the soldier pierced His side, how He struggled for air, thirst for water, and the moment He gave up the ghost. All of the thirst stopped in a twinkling of an eye, which seems fitting as we can have all of our thirst stopped just as quickly. We can be filled up with Living Water, which is Jesus. The One who bore all of our sins. That is the weight that I think He was baring, as He carried His own cross, and agonized over. Yes I realize that the sins of the world didn’t come upon Him until He was on the cross as the darkness widened across the sky because sin is darkness and it all had to no choice but to be placed upon Him. Hmm, I had never thought about how sin had to obey the Son that day as He told it to rest on Him, that He was guilty – taking our guilt – He would stand in our place, it was no longer on us (which we can accept that guiltless moment when we accept Jesus as our Savior and confess we are a sinner in need of saving grace). The excessive amount of sin, since Adam and Eve were removed from the garden of Eden to the end of the mankind, Jesus commanded it to release us and shackle Him. Praise God, sin had no clue that it couldn’t shackle Jesus! Jesus conquered death, hell and the grave. When we are forgiven, He leaves nothing out, we are set free from those shackles and that sin has to leave us, it must flee. It’s parted from us as far as the east is from the west. It’s after that moment that we make the choices to allow it future entrance into our lives. Even though Jesus set us free, we being imperfect entertain the possibilities of how sin could make us feel or what sin do to “improve” our lives. There’s no improvement in sin. There’s no true enjoyment in sin. There’s no peace, comfort, love or happiness in sin. There is pain, heartache, sadness, pure loneliness, regret, and guilt in sin.

Jesus’ “imperfections” that I love so much about Him is everything He endured in order to relate to us – His future joint-heirs. I love that He understands us and our pain, heartaches, hurts, how we grieve, how we can love with all of ourselves, how we are able to forgive even the worse of offenses, why we desire strong relationships and obtain true love in those relationships, and so much more. I love that His once earthly body had physical scars which reveal to us even He hurt, felt pain, wept, and fully relied on God His Father for everything. Therefore it can be done. You see, we look at physical scars as imperfections but Jesus’ bodily scars or “imperfections” are our victories because without Him having scars on His back, hands and feet, we would not have healings. We try to fix our scars or imperfections but Jesus takes them and creates a love in us that causes us to love ourselves as we are. 

Lord God, Thank You that Jesus was perfect while having imperfections that closed the gap between You and mankind. Oh what a blessed thing to know that the Son of God loves us, cares about us and understands absolutely everything about us. Thank You for loving me even though You see all of my scars, imperfections, rough edges and my true heart’s desires – to be found completely faithful to You.