The Beauty of Ruining Everything

I’ve ruined everything. Countless times and in a variety of circumstances, I’ve screwed up spectacularly.

I’ve wrecked my chances of going down in history as a flawlessly wise, kind, and patient parent. During a few particularly dreadful seasons of my life, I won’t even be remembered as possessing those qualities consistently, much less constantly.

When it comes to marriage, I’ve blown that apart too. How many sleepless nights have I spent ruminating on the pain my husband and I have caused one another? How many hours have I squandered to bitterness and pettiness and self-pity?

Friendships? I’ve subverted love by being vicious, neglectful, and callous.

Worldview? Opinions? I’ve fought with others like a paid mercenary for ideals and beliefs that I no longer hold. I’ve had to bulldoze my perspectives and build from scratch a dizzying number of times. As it turns out, I’ve been wrong a lot.

I’ve been arrogant, wasteful, entitled, and cruel. I’ve crushed others with my words, and with the absence of my words. And, by now, you might be pitying me. After all, this sounds awful.

I sound awful.

But I’ll let you in on an incredible secret that I’ve discovered only by ruining everything so many times:

When I ruin everything, it’s the perfect opportunity for my false-self to step aside so that my true-self can be seen.

My false-self attempts to protect me by armoring up, powering up, and puffing up. Unfortunately, those are all against behaviors that eventually lead to the ruining of things. And when the things get ruined, and all the armoring, powering, and puffing have failed to prevent that, my true-self is left exposed and vulnerable.

And here’s the other part of the incredible secret:

When my true-self is exposed, I can finally hear God. And God is always saying the same thing: Will you let me love you now?

The times I’ve failed at the job I want to succeed at the most, and my false-self has left one of my children hurting?

God is saying: Will you let me love you now?

When I’ve made a colossal ass of myself and, as a result, I want to go into hiding?

God is saying: Will you let me love you now?

As I confess my sins, and eat humble pie, and start from the beginning, and face the consequences of my actions. Even in all those moments…

God is saying: Will you let me love you now?

As difficult as it is for us to believe, God is always saying the same thing to all of us. The invitation to be loved as we are and where we are is never revoked, despite what the weak-of-faith and hard-hearted among us say to the contrary. Like our pitiful false-selves, those who preach a condemning God just haven’t yet experienced the scandalous and gentle love of our Father. They can’t believe it because they won’t receive it.

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When I watched Will Smith assault Chris Rock at the Oscars, and when I heard him say he desires more than anything to be a vessel of love only moments later, I didn’t think he was a hypocrite. I didn’t judge him to be a lunatic. I didn’t want him cancelled or excommunicated from the tribe of humanity.

What I thought was this: Ah, yes. His false-self just ruined everything. Now he’s positioned to receive love.

My heart ached for him because I’ve been there, in that moment when you realize you aren’t what you want to be or what you hoped you could be. I empathized because I know what it’s like to self-destruct, to crush something beautiful, to acknowledge that I can’t live up to my own standards, must less anyone else’s.

I know what it is to desire, more than anything, to be a vessel of love even as I magnificently fail in my efforts.

I hope that we can quiet our quick judgments and jump off our bandwagons and remove the planks from our own eyes so that we all can be better positioned to receive love. Sometimes a rebuke is necessary, but what is also necessary is holding space for our humanity, for healing, for a fresh start.

I hold out hope for Will as I hold out hope for us all. My hope is that, as false-self steps aside and true-self is left exposed, we can hear what God is always saying to us all:

All your efforts have failed. Will you let me love you – the real, unadorned, unimpressive, unremarkable, false-and-true, you – at last?