When these days are over, then from the eighth day onward the priests shall offer upon the altar your burnt offerings and your offerings of well-being, and I will accept you, says the Lord GOD. – Ezekiel 43:27 (NRSVUE)
This week has been full of me getting used to the new boot that will accompany me everywhere for the next month. Thankfully my ankle is not broken, but the ligaments were stretched well beyond their intended limits. The boot helps stabilize the ankle and allow it to heal while still letting me move around, so I am thankful for it. That being said, wearing it is hard work. It is heavy, a pain to put on, and slow to walk in.
I made several visits to members in the hospital last week. One thing immediately apparent to me was how much bigger a hospital feels while walking through it wearing that boot. What is usually a zip in and zip out trip from my car to the room I am visiting took forever. As my ankle heals and gets stronger this will change, but for now it took a long time to get where I was going. Areas that are usually bland background became oceans requiring an epic journey to get through. The biggest challenge was the moment I made a wrong turn and went down a wrong hallway. Where normally I would quickly retrace my steps and see where I had gone wrong, I needed to pause to catch my breath and figure out how much energy I had for making corrections. The additional challenge took away much of the margin for error that I had to do the things I needed to do.
Of course, wearing a boot for a few weeks is hardly an exceptional experience. Many people have needed to do it at some point. Others have other physical limitations that make daily routines more challenging in different ways. The reality of life is that none of us are perfectly efficient at getting our tasks done. None of us are free of mistakes or at our best every moment or every day. It is unreasonable to think that we can be otherwise, though much of our world assumes that we should always be at our best. We all need to have a certain margin for error built into our lives. Yet we are also hampered by a variety of challenges that erode that margin for error. It may be physical, it may be our own internal expectations of ourselves, it may be expectations placed upon us, or it may be structures around us that confine who we can be. Some limitations are obvious, some are not. Sometimes we don’t even notice them ourselves.
It is not easy to accept that we are limited. It is easy to get frustrated when we recognize that we have no further margin for error. We then put pressure on ourselves to be perfect. Yet, part of God’s grace is the powerful message that we are accepted and loved by God, with our limitations and all that comes with them. It is not that God loves us despite our limitations, but that God loves us, limited as we are. When we accept that message that runs counter to so much of what we think and what the world tells us, it relieves so much pressure. We are freed to live with who God created us to be, limitations included, and to use who God made us to be to be a blessing to others. It is not that we are perfect, but that we are empowered by God’s love.