Mother Love

{via}

I’m a very typical type-A personality and really love my lists. I make lists for all kinds of things…grocery, meals, books-to-read, movies-to-watch, miscellaneous purchases, to-do, etc. I get some kind of wonked out satisfaction from crossing things off of a list, and I’ve actually been known to put something on a list that I’ve already done, just so I can cross it off.

So in typical type-A style, here’s my thankful list:

Relationship with God: Sometimes I try to stop and imagine how people live and feel without having hope in the Lord…how people live and feel without the peace and security and salvation of Jesus. I can’t fully imagine how this is, but I do know that I am very thankful for all the goodness and love from God.

My husband: This man is truly the greatest gift to me. He has absolutely blessed my socks off and I love being married to him more than anything else in this world.

Family: I also sometimes try to stop and imagine how people feel who don’t have family. I can’t imagine how lonely that must feel…I am incredibly blessed to have parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws that value each other and take care of each other.

Health: I take good health for granted far too much.

Good food and drink: I like this quote that says, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” I am grateful for good food and drink, and I think it is good and appropriate to appreciate and be thankful for this.

Music and song: I truly cannot imagine life without music.

Coffee and chocolate: Yes, these two get their own category.

Beauty: Sometimes I try to imagine what the world would be like if everything was just dull and uncreative. Imagine a world without colors or nature or sounds or smells or intricate details. There is so much beauty all around me and I like this.

Forgiveness: I am so thankful to live around people who are gracious and forgiving. I mess up sometimes, and what a good feeling it is to be forgiven.

And on a less serious note, I am also really thankful for socks, sweat pants, and fuzzy sweaters. It’s getting cooooold up here and while I really don’t mind it, I am just glad to have things to bundle up in.

Also thankful and excited to travel to the south for Thanksgiving with my family!

What about you: what are two things (one serious thing, one silly thing) you are thankful for this holiday?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I am a perfectionist. Or more accurately I like to think that I am a recovering perfectionist. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching in this issue in the past few months, and it’s definitely a learning process every day as I try to identify all the ways that I let perfectionism drive me.

Perfectionism is the belief and practice that I have to do everything perfect in order to be good enough, to avoid blame and judgment from others, or to avoid feeling shame about myself.

If I live out of perfectionism, I essentially give myself zero room for failure or shortcomings. I give myself zero grace. I have to be perfect. Not just do perfect things, but be perfect. The sad thing is that when I extend zero grace to myself and don’t allow myself to make mistakes, this can often cross-over to extending zero or very little grace to others for their failures and shortcomings, which, by the way, we all have. Everyone single one of us have failures and shortcomings. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be human.

Perfectionism is a way to hide, really. It’s an effort to put up a front so that people will only see what we think they want to see. It’s offering only what we perceive will be received. Perfectionism is a way to protect from rejection and judgement. If I am perfect, you will love me and want me. If I am not, then you will find something you don’t appreciate in me and therefore not love me and not want me. Perfectionism essentially builds up huge walls of pretending in our heart. We offer only what is perfect, which means we can’t offer all of who we are.

For example, I made a batch of muffins last night for Ben to take to work for an early morning meeting. I used a new recipe and it really didn’t turn out very nicely, or rather, didn’t turn out perfectly. The tops were a little crispy and they didn’t look like the gorgeous, mouth-watering apple muffins I had envisioned in my mind as I was putting them together (you know, those pictures we see in our minds of pulling a tray of something delicious from the oven as steams surrounds us and everyone exclaiming over how perfect and tasty it looks and then feeling like such a divine domestic because of our amazing accomplishment…). Now normally I would start really getting down on myself about my failure. The internal voices would start telling me of how awful and horrid these muffins are and that no one will even want to eat them and everyone will realize what a bad cook and wife you are. But I stopped it. I didn’t listen to perfectionism. I didn’t allow my ideals to throw away an almost-perfectly-good batch of muffins in an effort to save myself from potential embarrassment and judgment.

See what perfectionism does is it takes a mistake or a shortcoming (because yes, the muffins were less than ideal) and makes this failure a part of you. Instead of seeing what happened as something outside of yourself and your identity, the mistake is internalized and it becomes a part of us. We let the mistake make us feel like a bad person, instead of just realizing that, yes, I made a mistake. That’s all it is…just a mistake. It is not who you are. I am not a failed batch of muffins. I am a woman who made a batch of muffins that weren’t that great, but I am no less because of it.

It’s right and good to strive for excellence, yes. I want to give this life all I’ve got in whatever arena I’m in, whether that’s the kitchen, or a job, or a relationship. I want my work and efforts to be excellent, but that is different than perfect.

Be excellent, not perfect. Give yourself grace, so you can give grace to those around you. Fail, learn, and grow.

What about you: do you find yourself struggling with perfectionism? What are your thoughts about perfectionism and how it plays out in your life?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!