It was the end of a long week and all 3 boys were weary and raged, and here I was trying to fit a quick trip to the grocery store into their exhausting afternoon. They yelled for things, cried at me, ran up and down aisles, and hit at each other. I would have loved to turn around and go straight home, but there was no other chance for me to get the shopping done.

I felt attacked and upset at them for making my life so difficult. And I blew it! To make matters worse, this was the weekend I was scheduled to go away for a writing retreat. My husband was taking the boys for a fun filled weekend at “Grandpa’s lake house”, while I got the time, space, and quiet I needed to write, uninterrupted. My intended subject: Raising boys with lots of love (insert laughter). Now on the cusp of my retreat I was as depleted as my little charges. In an instant I lost all patience with their childishness and cries, I knew they needed a quiet house and a quiet mom to usher them into a quiet evening, but I was spent.

In the car I scolded them good, started the engine and headed home. Within minutes they were all three of them sound asleep, and in the silence I had longed for conviction came quickly. I pulled into the driveway and unpacked the trunk, as they continued to sleep. I called my dad, whom I felt needed a heads up concerning my sleep-deprived hooligans, but as soon as he answered the phone I cried, “How can I write to women? How can I encourage them to raise their children when I can’t even train my own? Let alone endure them some days? I have nothing to write, I have nothing to say.” I felt taken out of the ministry God had opened up before me. Disqualified. I had grown weary and lost heart. After a long pause I said it again, “I have nothing to say, nothing to write.” My Dad’s response was gentle. “No, you have something to say, you just don’t like it. You want to be a Perfect Prophet.”

“A Perfect Prophet?” I thought for a moment, “Yes, I do!” I’d much rather be the well-spoken, put together mom, with words like honey dripping from her lips, who encourages others out of her reservoir of perfectness… not from all that’s lacking in her life. But this is the truth: Only Christ was perfect. The rest of us are simply in need of His perfection, that He might exchange it for our brokenness.

We are not perfect… but we are redeemed! I’ve sinned and fallen short of His Glory, all of us have gone astray, messed up, lost heart, grown weary, lacked faith, and denied Him by denying love to others. It was for this very reason Christ died. And, for the purpose of saving sinners all around us, he continues to Call His redeemed bearers of light out into the world today. But we say no to going because we feel we’ve disqualified ourselves. We wait to be more like Him before we “go!” But He doesn’t perfect us before He calls us, and He’s not done with us by the time we’re sent. Instead, He perfects us along the way. He transforms us by the renewing of our mind and the sanctifying power of His Spirit as we walk with Him. There was only one Perfect Prophet. Only One. But when we surrender our lives to Him, we can become, “Perfectly profitable” to all He has planned.

May you feel encouraged today to be a blessing to those around you, even in your imperfections.