Perfectly Defective

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'What is that? It's what I have to work with.'

~ from 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch'


I am perfectly defective. God designed me perfect, yet the world sees me as somewhat... defective. And because the world sees me as defective, I see myself as defective. I'm not sure exactly what makes me defective. Different parts of the world would say different things - I like women. I haven't accepted Jesus as my Savior. I'm a Christ follower. I have brown hair. I speak only English. I drink too much. I don't drink enough. I'm medicated for anxiety. I'm introverted. I like myself too much. I don't like to read. I text too much. I'm single. I'm sarcastic. I work retail. I didn't finish my Master's degree. I prefer walking to running. I'm short. I'm tall. I'm skinny. I'm chubby. I don't eat enough vegetables. I'm allergic to cats. I'm afraid of snakes. I can't play pool. I watch too much ESPN. The world will say what it will say and I will come away feeling lacking. And it's not just me. It's everyone. We were all created perfect, yet... We feel defective.

It's by design, but then again it's not. I like to believe that it's subconscious at best - why the world wants us all to be defective. If I'm defective, then you better be defective. And you. And you. And you. And you. Because if you're defective then maybe my defect won't be as noticeable. It's a nice, big, fun vicious circle of mutually suggested self-hatred. I hate myself because I'm defective so you damn well should too. And if I can make you hate yourself worse than I hate myself, maybe you won't realize that I'm less than perfect because you'll be too busy trying to hide your defects to recognize mine.

In the midst of all this, we forget one very important thing. We are perfect. Even within our imperfections, we are perfect. God created us as such. The god you believe in may not love you, but the God I believe in loves me, defects and all. 'Defects', as we call them, are really just differences created by God. Different doesn't mean better or worse. Different means different, yet our fucked up 'human nature' often defines differences as defects, if only to make us feel better about ourselves. In the end, this dishonesty hurts us irrevocably. We end up hiding from everyone, including ourselves. Of course, the one person we can't hide from knows us better than we know ourselves and He thinks we are perfect. And if He thinks we are perfect, we should probably believe Him. After all, He is God and He is perfect. Nevertheless, we believe others before God. Weird.

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