So...now what?

Wow!  Here I am back again so soon!  Well what do you know about that?  ;)


Okay, if my goal is to be honest here...a confession.  


Hello, my name is Pam...and I am a perfectionist.  Well, maybe a semi-reformed perfectionist.  What does that mean?  If one is the sort of person who Can Not devote 100% of your attention to a friend who is telling you about the wonderful news that their son just landed his dream job, got engaged to his one true love and won the lottery, because there is a picture on the wall behind her that is hanging crooked and you just have to go and straighten it right away--then you, too may be a perfectionist.  If you Can force yourself to look away from the crooked picture and listen attentively to her and respond as expected, but as soon as the moment presents itself you have to run over and straighten that picture--you may be a semi-reformed perfectionist.


How did I get from full-blown perfectionist to semi-reformed perfectionist?  Well, this is just a blog and not a self-help book, so I will try to be as brief as possible. 
1)   I married someone who is the total opposite of a perfectionist.
2)  After years of nagging and griping and near domestic violence situations, God gave me a mirror...and I used it.


Sounds simple enough.  Far from it.  Amazingly enough, the reflection I saw was in my own words.  In one of those "Storm" moments of my life I began communicating with God through written prayers each morning.  Well, if you must know...they were written on a computer screen.  But they were written words, which is my best means of communication.  It started out as a way to remember all the prayer requests that were in my life at the time.  Seeing them written kept them in my mind and on my heart each day.  From there--as I often do--I found myself drifting off into psalms of praise followed by periods of whining and moments of introspection and confession.  


After several weeks of these daily journal devotions, I began to look back over what I had written.  The image was crystal clear.  Here was a person who was totally self-absorbed, self-centered and selfish.  My pleas for others were cloaked in motives for achieving my own desires.  I was appalled, ashamed, convicted.  My prayers began to change into "Mold me, make me into your image".  I began to search for my own ulterior motives in everything I did or said. 


At first, it was a struggle to make the things that I said or did Not be selfishly motivated.  But, after a time I found that it came much more naturally.  It's funny that when I stopped focusing on my own needs and desires that I didn't seem to have as many.  Perfection does not matter so much  after all, because I am the only one who is disturbed by that crooked picture.


Remember that I did say I am a Semi-Reformed perfectionist?  That means it is a never-ending struggle.


 " ^22-24Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

 ²⁵But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.

 ^26-27Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world. James 1:22-25, The Message


Ouch!  The truth is often painful.    It's very easy to walk away from that mirror and forget who I saw there. I am a work-in-progress.