Progress, Not Perfection
Day 7 - a Year with God
So, daily I struggle to make progress, but I have given up on achieving perfection. As a woman, I find this a difficult task. We are often obsessively driven to try to attain perfection in all areas of our lives. We do too much, we never say no, we seek to be the ideal everything to everybody.
I have to say I am happy to be able to put down that ambition and realize that God's grace allows for imperfection. I am allowed to make mistakes, but I am trying to learn from them now instead of chastising myself for making them.
Making mistakes is probably something I will continue to do, I just don't wish to keep making the same ones over and over. I am learning to see where I am going wrong, where I have been wrong and making adjustments in my life, in my attitude and in my interactions with others.
I may make mistakes, but I am not my mistakes. They do not define me or relegate me to a certain category
of person to be forever condemned by them. I now see them for what they are: opportunities to learn and grow and stretch myself.
And likewise I have to understand that mistakes made by others are their opportunities for growth and my chance to practice forgiveness, tolerance and Godly love towards my neighbors. Every time I move forward and learn from my behavior it is a victory for me.
Accepting my own imperfection, has allowed me to treat others with more respect and to be more flexible in my thinking. Allowing yourself imperfection, allows you to understand it more readily in others.
"Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit." Conrad Hilton
"How happy I am to see myself imperfect and be in need of God's mercy." St Therese of the Child Jesus and The Holy Face, OCD
"But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'
James 4:6
Resources
Day 6 - Sowing Seeds In Faith
Open Bible - Grace
Our Garden of Carmel - Quotes of Saints and Blesseds of Carmel
Think Exist - Mistakes Quotes
Published by Marilyn Quinn
Featured Video Games Contributor, Freelance writer, voracious reader, mother of four, wife and gamer who lives just minutes outside Albuquerque, in Rio Rancho, NM! View profile
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