On A Hunt For Perfection

The first purchase Chris and I made as married people was our dining room table. We thought it was so fancy. A pub-high from Crate and Barrel that seated four but extended out to an enormous square for eight. It came with four vinyl-cushioned chairs and we purchased four more wooden stools with bright eyes ready to host all the things. We kept that thing in mint condition. Not really intentionally, but how much damage can two grown adults do to it? Well, the answer is nothing. Grown adults don’t ruin material things. Kids do.

Since then, we had to resurrect this original dining room table that sat dormant in our basement for years. The Katulka dining room space is awaiting the right timing to purchase a new table. So, the original table is back in our lives. And guess what? That vinyl that had been just fine for over ten years is no longer with us. It was ripped and shredded into a million tiny pieces. I mean, I’m not saying it was the highest quality vinyl, but still, a tiny little rip was all our little velociraptor toddler needed to get in there and tear it to shreds.

Oh, little velociraptor toddler, please stop.

Well, he never stops. Like any good, healthy two-year-old he sniffs out trouble in our home and attacks it with full force. He especially likes the holes in our plaster walls. We come downstairs to crumbles and dust all over the ground and look up to about toddler-height to find huge holes were he busied himself for a few short, but highly-productive, minutes.

I often wonder (after the fact) what did I think he was doing to give me time to blow dry my hair AND brush my teeth.

He was tearing apart my walls. That’s what he was doing.

Which is why on the days off from school when all the big kids are home we have to get out. Otherwise he’d tear my whole house apart!

It’s a great thing he is cute.

On our recent day off we had the fortune of spending a fortune, er, I mean spending quality time, at an apple-picking farm. Ok, don’t get me wrong. It is fun watching the kids run through pathways of apple trees, loading up paper bags to obscene weights they can’t carry. We always get awesome photos of them hunting for the right ones while I quietly add up how much we are about to spend and wonder how I can become a farmer. These kids moan about all the bruised apples, as though they’re toxic poison ivy that can’t be touched. Hundreds of great but bruised apples are stepped over to reach high for the ones who still have something left to offer. Trips to the farm also prove that moms make the best ladders. But, duh. What can’t moms do?

Of course there’s nothing wrong for reaching for the highest apples, we all want the best. Bruised usually means there was a little trauma, like falling off a tree or being thrown to the ground after it was picked (probably by a silly little two year old toddler).

Bruised means more work of having to cut around it or running the risk of taking a bite into something awful tasting. Who has time for that?

We see bruised and we step over it.

Of course it’s just an apple. Who cares. It’s a hayride and an experience for children. They scramble to find the best ones — they find them — we pay for them — then they leave them by the tether-ball game at the farm. (Hopefully someone else took them home to enjoy.)

But, that’s just it, right? We’re all little apples. Picked and picked over. Fresh and bruised. Sweet sides and rotten sides. There isn’t one of us who’s not.

Stick with me.

The older I get the more I realize that at every stage of our lives we are on a little apple-picking trip. We are hunting high for love, friends, material possessions, status, fitness, promotion, wealth, happiness. As children, we just wanted to have fun. As we grew, we started looking for academic or sports success. As we got older, we looked for scholarships and school-rankings. And now, as a late-thirty-something, we hunt for professional success and status. But at every age and life stage one thing never changes — none of us want to be overlooked — we all want to be the apple picked.

But as it turns out we all are a little bruised. A little bitter. A little broken. Like the chairs in my home, or the cracks in our plaster walls, a little tiny tear can open up a huge wound. Unfortunately, at every stage of life, as we hunted for the best that life had to offer we also were hurt. Life hurt us. Life picked you and then threw you to the ground. Maybe you were tossed out by a friend, a parent, a job or a spouse.

Maybe your bruise is forming right now.

My concern is that if we keep thinking perfection is something to find, we will keep rejecting the bruised apples who actually may be able to empathize with you or grow alongside you.

Even the apples where we hoisted heavy children with our aching mama backs to reach had their flaws. And surprisingly, not all the bruised apples on the ground tasted bad. Levi tasted a few to prove it.

People are hurting.

And while you may feel alone, the thing I love about all those bruised apples on the ground is that there are hundreds of them. They are all together. They probably didn’t know it (I mean, they’re apples and don’t have brains), but you do. You have a heart and a brain and an opportunity to accept that your bruises don’t mean you are rejected, they mean you are empowered to love on people who are the same.

Which is everyone.

There is no one without scars.

Maybe instead of stepping over the bruised ones, you pick it up, and compare stories. Maybe there’s a richness that you’ve been missing on the hunt to find a perfection that (shhhhh) doesn’t exist.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.1 Corinthians 13:4-7