Letting Go of Perfection
in order to make room for Christ
Mistakes are an inevitable part of life. We live in a fallen world and none of us can be perfect. We strive with all our might to live up to the Ideal we have set before us, but again and again we fail: we make poor choices, we hurt those dear to us, we act based on misunderstandings and miscommunication, and we mess up over and over.
We can, of course, be sorry for our mistakes. All of us know regret and remorse. We try to clean up the spills and the broken fragments that remain as evidence of our carelessness or our folly. But try as we might to mend the tear, the fact is that the fabric will never be as good as new again. We can glue the broken pieces back together, but the jar will always show evidence of the crack.
We may strive for perfection but we cannot attain it in this life. And you know what? That's ok.
We must learn to strive for the ideal, while always remembering that we cannot reach it — yet. We must not attempt to have everything be perfect now because that's an invitation for more trouble. Intrusive thoughts will enter in and make a home in our hearts and they will tear everything apart even more.
These are the thoughts that say,
I am a failure
My child is not who he should be
My spouse is not behaving as a loving spouse behaves
Everyone will think badly of me or my family
If I don't fix this problem I will "ruin" my child's life
I have failed my loved ones and myself
The list could go on and on with endless variations, but ultimately all these thoughts boil down to the reality that I think things "should" be a certain way and they simply are not. Sometimes these thoughts come internally and sometimes those around us suggest them to us. And we feel helpless and hopeless and panicked because we can't fix things. We want Perfect and we think we can have it now. We think we should have it now.
The reality is that none of us can live up to the Ideal. The reality is that we must live with the consequences of sin; both our own sins and the sins of others. The fall of Adam was universal and we will never be free of the consequences until Christ comes again.
But that doesn't mean we must live in a state of despair and hopelessness. Those thoughts that intrude on our hearts don't have to be welcomed. Those comparisons and reminders of failure and all thoughts that cause us to wring our hands and react with anxiety and worry are nothing but useless trash that ought to be put out at the curb and not allowed to decompose in our hearts.
All of the thoughts above and their variations can be replaced with an attitude of repentance and humility. Both of these take effort on our part to cultivate, but it’s effort well-placed. Instead of the litany of failure and self-blame, what if we replaced it with thoughts such as:
Without Christ I am nothing; with God all things are possible
Thank God for this child, just as he is.
My spouse is human too, and God has given me exactly the person I needed in order to grow in my faith.
I can’t control what people think, but I can keep my eyes on Christ
I cannot save my child/spouse/friend. Jesus saves, and He loves them more than I ever could — I can pray and rest assured that He will work out their salvation according to His plan.
We must accept our weaknesses and bear our shame and keep our eyes on Christ who is the only One who can fix this mess and make all things new. And what do we see when we behold Him? We see Him suspended on the cross, taking on all the shame and brokenness, all the mistakes and imperfections of the world upon Himself.
We can't fix a thing. He does the fixing and the perfecting. He makes all things new and only asks that we take what we have in our hands, offer it up to Him, and do our best to live in communion with Him so that we may become whole once more. We can't compare and we can't judge and we can't expect perfection by worldly standards.
Our God is all-powerful and all-knowing. He is always moving to effect our salvation and the mark of His hand can be seen everywhere if we will just take the time to look. We must give up our notions of what constitutes perfection; our own ideas of every "should” in life. The only thing for us to do is to focus on Him. As St. Seraphim said, we must simply seek to acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around us will be saved.