The Gaps Are Where Grace Finds Us
The Meeting Points: Perfectionism, the pause, and the quiet ways we hurt ourselves
My Dearest Friend and Reader,
Welcome to the next instalment of The Grace-Filled Way. Today’s focus is on how there is a real discernible difference between receiving grace and chasing perfection.
And so often, our choices—both conscious and unconscious—honour the latter.
Have you noticed?
Are you noticing?
We often believe it’s others who hurt us, through what they do or fail to do.
But what about how we hurt ourselves: through what we choose, and what we refuse to choose? One of the ways in which we invite interactions with grace is by examining our individual, personal relationship with our choices.
This is something I’ve been sitting with as I attempted to write this follow-up to my last article, A Mighty Yet Quiet Rising.
If I were chasing perfection, I would have made sure there was no gap between articles i.e. no delay, no space for ambiguity. Seamless. Predictable. Polished.
But to receive grace is to allow the gap, and then to inhabit it as fully as we are able to. That’s not always an easy thing to do, and in my experience it is often more painful than not.
And if you're someone who has been shaped by perfectionism, that gap won’t feel like grace. It will feel like failure. A misstep. Something to apologise for.
I hope you’re already seeing the glimmers here: that there are countless times we reject grace when we choose perfection.
In this reflection, I explore the quiet space between grace and perfectionism—and how the choices we are faced with often reveal the things we fear most. What if the gaps in our lives weren’t failures, but sacred invitations?
