Perfection is so overrated

I’ve wanted to be perfect for so long.

It started 11 years ago when my mom sat us all down in the bedroom I shared with my sister and, as the shame and fear and haunting disappointment in her eyes chafed us raw, told us that my father had a 3-year-old child and another baby on the way and wouldn’t be coming back like he’d promised us.

I wanted to be perfect then, to bring him back.

I began the sixth grade rejected and wounded—a lanky kid taller than all the boys and dorkier than all the girls. I remember keeping my distance from friends, excusing myself from sleepovers and birthday parties, always afraid that people would snub me when they saw the tiny, shabby house I lived in or opened the cheap gifts my mom couldn’t afford. I needed to convince them that I was perfect—because if they believed the mirage that hid who I was deep down inside, then maybe Daddy would believe it, too.

In high school, I turned in every homework assignment and studied for every test to hold my place at the top of my class because Daddy would have to be impressed if I graduated valedictorian. I did, too. Daddy didn’t even come to the ceremony that launched me into adulthood, where I delivered my first public speech and sang a song dedicated to hundreds of happily married parents…and my mom.

So in college, I starved myself, thinking maybe if I were skinnier or prettier, Daddy might take an interest in my life. I ran six miles and limited myself to 600 calories a day the same year Daddy stopped calling.

I never, ever dreamed it would slither into my marriage and my parenting and all the years between, when I thought I’d left it behind. But here it is, gaping at me like I should have known.

Maybe I should have known.

A few weeks ago, I asked Ben to clean out the air filter in our house. The cooling/heating system had a slight rattle in its throat, and I was concerned that pipes may be getting clogged that shouldn’t be getting clogged and that we might pay for that later when the whole system quit. Knowing we couldn’t afford something like that if it happened, I used my nagging voice.

Still, he sat on that thorn for weeks, like it didn’t even bother him.

Maybe it slipped his mind. Maybe he didn’t have time. Maybe it just wasn’t as important to him as it was to me.

So I listed in my journal one night all the reasons why I shouldn’t have to clean our air filter myself. I already do the dishes and wash the laundry and dust the furniture and vacuum the floors and make up the bed—even though I’m the first one up—and straighten the clutter and take out the trash when Ben forgets or oversleeps and pay the bills and take care of the baby and organize the songs for our concert and keep track of our tax records and balance our checkbook and schedule Jadon’s 15-month appointment and collect business contacts for Progeny and still manage to throw 110-percent into a more than 40-hour-a-week job.

I remember feeling a little annoyed that he could pin so much on me, that he could believe I was anything close to Super Wife or Super Mom or Super Helper.

It was a dangerous path that crept right past reality.

I thought about this for a long time. Ben and I are reading a book called Breaking the Cycle of Divorce because we both come from generations of broken marriages and affairs that caused them. So much is heaped on the shoulders of the kids who watch a parent walk out the door and never come back.

The chapter we read yesterday explained four of the 12 manifestations of divorce’s curse. One of the most destructive of those manifestations is isolation. I mentioned in my last blog that I hadn’t heard from God in a while, so it startled me a little when he spoke. His words were clear and beautiful and heart-stopping.

Here’s what he said.

“Ben never expected or will expect you to be the perfect wife. Jadon never expected or will expect you to be the perfect mom. I never expected you to be a perfect helper. Open your eyes and let go of that bar that your hands control and continue to raise every day that slips by because it is pushing you into yourself and away from all the people I have brought into your life who love you so much.”

Every word is true, and I know it now, deep down inside. I’m ready to be real and transparent and...the broken mess-of-a-woman I’ve tried to hide for so long.

I’m not perfect. I never have been. I argue with my husband. I take low shots. I sometimes forget that he carries the laundry up the stairs so I don’t slip and crack my tailbone again and that he scrubs the bathrooms until they shine because toilets make me queasy and that he carries me through the painful memories when I can’t walk through them myself.

There’ll be days when I’ll spend hours with God and days when I won’t be able to sacrifice a minute. I will be detached and mean and frighteningly selfish sometimes. I will always see 10 more pounds that I could lose.

I think sometimes I need to be reminded that I fall short of God’s glory because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t really need a Savior. I wouldn’t believe I needed one, anyway. And his strength could never sweep through my life if I didn’t have a weakness.

Thank you, Jesus, that I have never reached perfection.


Our little musician


Happy on Christmas morning


He actually did this himself


He'll never use this in his lifetime, but he sure loved playing with it


Yep. Already knows how to brush his teeth.


Somebody needs a bath