I have learned a lot since coming home, which I love. One key thought I had—and was scared about—was that I might not grow or change after my mission.. Most of what I’ve learned has come through experiencing something I fear: failure. Despite fearing failure, I crave and love growth.
These two aspects of life—failure and growth—seem to live in opposition to each other. Yet, truthfully, they complement rather than contrast one another. My religion professor at BYU recently taught me this idea:
“We must not fear failure. We must not praise innocence. We must see perfectionism as ino innocence. For perfectionism and innocence are not virtues. If they were, Adam and Eve would have never progressed. We are not here to stay innocent; we are here to become wise.”
Perfectionism is a form of distrust in the Savior and is in direct opposition to faith. Perfectionism is the fear of needing our lives fixed—a rejection of being broken. However, being broken does not equate to being worthless. Quite the opposite. Failure means we can be touched and made better through the Savior’s Atonement.
This idea reminds me of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken tableware, like plates or bowls, is repaired with gold paint over the cracks. Through this process, the tableware’s value increases. The once-broken, now-repaired piece is worth more than a never-broken one.
Now, I am not saying that our worth increases when we partake of the Savior’s Atonement. That is not true; our worth does not change or grow in the sight of the Lord. As Ardeth Kapp states, “Our worth came with us to earth.”
What I am saying is that when we allow ourselves to be imperfect or broken for a time, the Savior heals us, painting our cracks with His golden touch. His touch is not only healing and restorative but transformative. This golden paint does not make us how we were before—it makes us different and better than we ever were. This transformation, possible only through the Savior’s Atonement, often begins with what some might see as failure.
Thus, our brokenness becomes an opportunity for the Savior to leave His imprint on us. Being healed by Him means that His character and love are written into us. Like the golden cracks of kintsugi, the Savior’s influence on our lives becomes visible to others and to ourselves. His healing is evident in the ways we change: our characteristics, our weaknesses, our relationships. The Savior’s perfecting touch is reflected in, on, and through us.
Perfectionism, then, denies the Savior’s ability to make more of us than we could by remaining in our “unbroken” form. It rejects faith, which is trusting the Lord’s power to heal, mend, improve, and empathize with all things—not just some things.
It is easy to have faith when life only presents small challenges—when the Savior’s help is needed for only ABC. But what about when life feels like A through Z is falling apart? It is easy to trust the Savior to handle a few issues, just like asking a friend to pick up a few groceries. True faith, however, means giving Him our entire to-do list, access to our bank account, and the responsibility to write personal birthday cards for our family—all while trusting He will get everyone’s Swig orders right!
Do we trust the Savior’s Atonement to cover everything or just some things? True faith is allowing everything to fall apart and still having complete confidence that the Savior can and will make it whole. It is about actually giving our struggles to Him and then refusing to worry. As my dear companion once said, “If you are worrying about it, you’re not trusting God.” (And that carried extra weight coming from someone who was excellent at worrying.)
The Atonement of Jesus Christ must cover everything. But everything in our lives does not have to be falling apart for us to develop faith and confidence in the Savior.
For a long time, I questioned whether I had truly used the Atonement in my life. I wondered if it was “working” for me, since I had not committed any major sins or had a dramatic “Alma the Younger” conversion story. Sometimes, I even wished I had a “classic convert” experience—one where I had lived a portion of my life without the gospel before discovering its fullness.
That changed when a dear mentor shared this quote with me—a quote I turned to many times on my mission:
“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness—they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.” — C.S. Lewis
All in all, perfection and brokenness, failure and growth, good and bad are not two different sides of a pendulum that we swing to and from. We are not one or the other. We, through Jesus Christ and His Atonement, walk a middle path in between the two. They are two elements that must be experienced simultaneously. For there must be opposition in all things. We must learn how to find the golden path that lies in the middle between these two extremes and walk it. where these elements coexist and complement each other. Opposition in all things is essential, a That golden path is lit by the Savior, His earthly ministry, and His continuing service.
All in all, perfection and brokenness, failure and growth
, good and bad are not two different sides of a pe that we swing to and from. We are not one or the other. We, through Jesus Christ and His Atonement, walk a middle path in between the two. They are two elements that must be experienced simultaneously. For there must be opposition in all things. We must learn how to find the golden path that lies in the middle between these two extremes and walk it. That golden path is lit by the Savior, His earthly ministry, and His continuing service.
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