Morgan Z.

Photography by Peyton Mears

If you’re reading this, you are perfect in your imperfection.

We live in a broken world, full of imperfect people. Society is constantly telling us we need to do more, or be more. The standard is perfection. For as long as I can remember, I never felt worthy of love unless I was achieving this “perfect” standard, whether through grades, sports, or my appearance. But the truth is, this perfection we all strive for is an impossible goal, and the validation we receive for achieving it is as momentary as the perfection lasts. The validation is poured into an empty cup that never fills.

My whole life, I worked so hard to earn the love of everyone around me. Because of the warped narrative taught by society, I believed I had to be perfect in order to receive love. Weirdly enough, even when I did receive this validation I was searching for, I could not believe it for myself. It could not fill me or sustain me. No matter how much I was praised for my looks, my intellect, or my successes, at the end of the day, I still felt the same about myself. And the way I felt about myself was not good. But what I didn’t know is that love cannot be earned, it is just received. It is received as a result of who you are, and not what you do. It turns out that the “love” I was scrapping for was not love at all.

I searched the world for a love and peace that satisfied me. And I failed. I reached the end of myself. Until, out of desperation, I turned to my Creator. And for the very first time, I felt love. Unconditional love. A love that I could never earn, and in this same way, a love that I can never lose. God tells me I am loved because I am His daughter, not because I get an A on a test or because of a number on the scale. Receiving this true, unconditional love has finally transformed me into the person I was always striving to be. The answer was lying right in front of me the whole time!

Perfection is a trap we must free ourselves from. A mask of perfection means nothing to a world of imperfection. Imperfection points to a life that has been lived! A life of rejection and acceptance, of failures and successes, of sadness and joy. If we never give ourselves the grace to mess up, we will never give ourselves the chance to get it right either. And whether it be a blessing or a lesson, there is value in both of these things. I have been freed from this trap by finding a love that I cannot lose by messing up. I now have the freedom to be human, and to be me, without fear of being abandoned when I am not perfect. Jesus took my broken pieces, and crafted them into something beautiful. My cup that was once empty now overflows!

I want you to know that you are loved, and you have value. For the person you are, not for your accomplishments. You could give it all away and this truth would still not change. My hope is that you come to believe this for yourself, because that is where the living begins.

So yes, we live in a broken world, but it is simultaneously a beautiful one. We just have to change the way we look at ourselves in order to find the beauty. Because beauty is not found in perfection, but rather in authenticity.

Morgan Z., Florida State University

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