Imperfections That Grow Character

A collage of stories about imperfections, shame, and growth

I eyed the piece of wood my husband was preparing to work on. It had knots, swirls of grain, wormholes, and even parts black with rot. “This is what you’re going to make it out of?”

He nodded. 

I raised a brow. “What about all these imperfections?”

He smiled at me. “They’ll only add character,” he said. 

A major part of my husband’s work is making blanks of wood that others will buy to carve into knife handles. The majority of the wood he uses is rotten, broken, and holey, with such a mixture of strange grain directions that would typically condemn a piece as unusable for woodworking. 

However, it’s exactly this kind of wood that creates the perfect product for his business.

He takes these crippled and discarded pieces of wood and puts them through a process where all the air is sucked from the wood and resin fills it instead. If a piece isn’t long enough for a knife handle, he’ll fill the rest of the space with coloured resin. The end results are at times breath-taking. I laugh as I watch my husband and his father, who once scoffed at knotty, burled wood for its flaws, now celebrating such a find in their sawmill discard pile.

—

I stood in my uncle’s antique store as an elementary-school-aged girl, eyeing the metal box I had picked up for signs of imperfections. 

“You see this?” my uncle said. He bent over and peered at me through his large, round glasses. “See how these flowers aren’t all the same, or how these circles aren’t perfect? That’s how we know it was hand-made, not made by a machine. That makes it all the more valuable.”

I took that box home, despite my father, my uncle, and my aunt all trying to convince me to choose something else. I wanted that beautiful box not only because it was unique, but because someone had carved each little detail with their own hands. 

Since then, I’ve examined every old or foreign piece of decor for the same quality. I analyze the designs, carvings, engravings, and decorative paint to search for incongruences and imperfections because then I’ll know it was crafted by human hands—and that in itself adds much character.

—

I lay crumpled on the edge of my bed, the words I had yelled at my family grinding in my head like a loose clog. 

You’re an imperfect human, Lara. Like a choir, I heard this in the voices of the many counsellors’ I’ve sat in front of, the Instagram stories from influencer upon influencer, and the colourful graphics that dazzled my Facebook feed.

Meanwhile, I heard my Bible in the bedside drawer next to me—not in the scornful, disapproving tone of my dad, but as the compassionate father I always longed for. Be holy, as your Heavenly Father is holy. 

I rubbed my bleary eyes, trying to connect these disparate pieces together. Am I like a block of wormy, blackened wood, or a hand-made antique, each whose flaws make us have more character? But I knew I couldn’t be because character isn’t founded in sins and mistakes but in pursuing good works, beholding God-defined beauty, and standing firm with absolute, objective truth. This is the soil godly character pushes up through, the food and light that causes its pedals to open and smile.

What do these imperfections signify? Are they simply my humanity to accept or another way to recoil from the light in shame?

I find no answer, so I silence both voices and allow the demons to chant my sinfulness and despairing state as loud as they can.

—

During my growing-up years, I had my mother read and critique every piece of writing over my shoulder at the bulky desktop computer (because our printer was unreliable and ink wasn’t cheap). I fought with her over every comma, misspelled word, and inconsistency of plot. Several times she renounced ever critiquing my work again because I reacted so poorly (although she graciously never held firm to that). 

Years later, a mother to three, I sent the first fiction manuscript I had completed since my childhood to an editor. She not only wrote in the margins of my document but wrote a page and a half of critique and wanted to meet with me over video to discuss. My younger self would have burned with embarrassment and likely condemned every critique she offered once the screen went black. Instead, I sat forward with a pen and paper in hand, scratching down copious notes in nearly intelligible writing because I didn’t want to miss a single word she said. 

I don’t know when the change took place, but at some point in my writing, critiques moved from being a battleground and became fertile soil for strength and character to grow. For each mistake and correction an editor made, I knew a lesson wove itself between their words—a lesson for how to write better next time and guard myself against making the same mistakes.

There the disparate pieces wrapped together.

My flaws and imperfections (my sins) don’t add to my character simply by remaining, like a slightly wobbly circle painted on the edge of a dish. I always thought the conviction and remorse the Holy Spirit welled in my heart were akin to spitting words of condemnation. You stupid girl, are you mentally retarded? No, those were the words of my dad. 

The weight pressing me at the sight of my sin is the Spirit’s gentle hand—he prods, and guides me back to the way of truth, beauty, and goodness he knows I was made for. It’s the loving, perfect discipline of my Heavenly Father, without which I would prove to be an illegitimate son. This is a sign of the great love he bestows on me. He is calling me to greater character and showing me the way forward. Our Heavenly Father never relents in his sanctifying love for his children because he made us sons and daughters by his perfect grace.