Improvement Or Absurdity?

It would have been just about 31 years ago this very week. I can VIVIDLY remember standing in front of the built-in bookshelves of our brown paneled living room just SOBBING to both my parents about the pressures I expected second grade to bring. I mean - what if I couldn't see the equations on the board with the teacher standing in front of them? What if I had to go the the bathroom WHILE she was in the middle of an explanation and she wouldn't let me? And For The Love Of All That Is Good And Right In The World, what ON EARTH .....WHAT would happen if I didn't learn to read the BIG words as fast as everyone else? I would after all be forever left behind then, wouldn't I?

There IS a worry wart gene, I am convinced, and I was born with it. It has been present (along with the competitive gene, the excuse gene and the OCD gene that normally accompany it) for as long as I can remember. Which specifically is the day I MADE my mom reserve my first official potty poop to show my dad when he FINALLY returned home from his business trip. After all, I wanted enthusiastic credit for my Sweet Success. It also seems like this anal retentive habit crescendoed when my frustrated father forbade my continued studying for college finals for fear that my head would fall off! This propensity of mine to worry has never really applied to such things as elevators or heights or drowning or things like that (for which fear WOULD have actually served me quite well), but it has been exclusively reserved for areas of my life that invite the potential of - GAAAAAAAASP - FAILURE!

So when I heard a preacher tell me for the very first time at the age of 23 that I am a most imperfect creature but that God loves me exactly the same as he does all those higher performers who maddeningly kept me out of first place in all of life's thousands of potential accomplishments - well, I liked that. I liked that enough to trust my life to Him.

But not enough to change immediately. The cursing and the drinking and the those sorts of activities seemed to cease instantaneously. The perfectionism thing lingered a lot longer. And my parents, who have lived with it most of their entire lives and see me often enough to recognize only gradual progress, are probably witnesses to my many starts and trip-ups the most often. And yet, no one knows as clearly as myself how very, VERY, VERY FAR the good Lord has brought me in this particular area. Tonight my parents are here visiting. As I made the rounds to lock up after they went to bed, I pulled up the front blinds to look outside and I was able to laugh at myself. A mistake I've let linger since Christmas at least. The wind had apparently blown some flowers off of a plant stand that sits at the very corner of our home. It's an out-of-the-way corner that we rarely pass. Obviously. The plant laying there in front of our picture window as I gazed out at the night WAS A POINSETTIA.

So is that laid back enough for you now? I just have to wonder. Has God done a miraculous work in my heart in getting me to give up the sin of perfectionism that no one else was able to - or have I just gotten INCREDIBLY dingy or lazy?

Poinsettias in August! You know, it may just be easiser to leave them there since Christmas really isn't all that far away. And if I were a guy, I might just wear black socks with sandals.