In the Imperfection

While driving back from Cincinnati, a semi pulled in front of me and (unintentionally) sent a decently sized pebble shooting into my windshield.

CRACK!

Though it wasn't of huge width, my windshield now sported a rather deep "crater" about the size of a quarter. Needless to say, I was shaken up and upset.

Fast forward to one week later.....

Safelite was pretty fast about filling in and fixing up the windshield. (To quote the Safelite guy, "It's not the worst I've seen, but that's pretty deep.") And, while you can still see remnants of the crack in the glass, it's not so terribly bad.

And it got me thinking - sometimes the imperfections look bad at first; they remind us that things (and we're) not perfect. But there's something freeing in that. My car, for example, still drives fine from point A to point B, and its new imperfection isn't that visible unless you're up close or looking for it. The thing is, now I don't need to worry about keeping it perfect (though I'll still try to keep it as good as new as I am able).

Maybe it's a stretch, but we, likewise, have many imperfections, be they large or small, and we're not going to be perfect (though we still need to strive for heaven), no matter how hard we try.

And imperfections are like scars - therefore, I'd like to leave you with the words of Chris Cleeve in Little Bee: "We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived."

So, when things get tough or something comes that you weren't wanting/expecting (e.g. a rock in your windshield), smile when it's over, look at the "scar," and look to the future. We've all got scars - some people are better at hiding them; some people are better at remembering and learning from them...