As part of my garden harvest process, I have a mantra: “I shall love anything I find.”

I shall love a marble-sized potato if it is all I find. I shall love a crooked carrot if it’s all I can find. One pepper, tomatoes that won’t turn red, and Brussels sprouts that won’t grow anything but leaves.

Anything except squirrels, snakes, and bugs I can’t identify. Then the mantra is: “I shall run from anything I find.”

Besides, most garden misfits can still find purpose in a good pot of soup. Put them in a pot with a few seemingly more perfect ingredients, and suddenly nobody is asking which one was pretty enough. Each one adds something to the flavor and body of the whole pot. Each one brings what it has, and together they become something none of them could have been alone.

There is purpose even in the imperfect.

Ephesians 2:10 (KJV) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works…

Now, squirrels and snakes are excluded from this particular revelation. I am from “the country,” but I am not that country.

I have always had a soft spot for misfits. Crooked vegetables. Broken toys. Bruised people. Things that didn’t turn out quite the way somebody thought they should.

Maybe that’s because I’ve learned that imperfect doesn’t mean worthless. Small doesn’t mean unsuccessful. Scarred doesn’t mean finished. And something doesn’t have to look like everybody else’s version of “good” to still be worthy of celebration.

Maybe I know that because there have been seasons when I looked at myself and saw the misfit.

I saw what was broken before I saw what had survived. I saw the scars before I saw the healing. I saw the places where life had changed me and wondered whether I still measured up to the woman I thought I was supposed to be.

There were times when I gave other broken things more grace than I gave myself.

But this garden keeps putting imperfect things in my hands and asking me the same question:

Can you love this anyway?

And maybe God has been asking me to turn that question around.

Can you love yourself anyway?

Then I remember Calvary.

Jesus did not wait for me to become some flawless version of myself before He decided I was worth saving. He took stripes for me. He carried the cross for me. He poured out grace and mercy for a woman He already knew would have scars, shortcomings, broken places, bad decisions, and days when she couldn’t see much worth in herself.

Calvary reminds me that my imperfections have never disqualified me from His love or His purpose.

The same Jesus who knew everything that would ever be imperfect about me still considered me worth the sacrifice.

So perhaps grace means I should stop demanding perfection from someone Jesus already died to redeem.

If I can celebrate the marble-sized potato because it pushed its way through the dirt and grew despite everything that worked against it, perhaps I can offer myself that same grace.

I grew too. Not perfectly. Not without scars. Not always according to plan.

But I grew.

And because of Jesus, I am still covered by grace, still surrounded by mercy, still carrying purpose.

So whatever comes out of those potato bags, I shall love anything I find.

And maybe when I look in the mirror, I can finally say the same thing.