Good is not Perfect

Last week, my husband shared with me a revelation that he had just had… He said, ‘God said that “it was good” after he created everything, but he never said that it was perfect.’  In true fashion, my husband didn’t really discuss it or delve in to the topic, he just announced it and went on his merry way.  That’s the way he rolls.  He can be quiet for a long time, thinking… then he will announce some profound piece of wisdom and just leave it there, hanging in the air, with no other words or thoughts or anything special.  I envy the fact that he can do that – not stress over anything, not analyze it to death, not worry about explaining his thoughts.  I can’t.  He leaves these little gems lying around and I’m left to examine them, ponder them, wrestle with them, and wonder if there is something in there for me.

As a perfectionist, I have wrestled with this little sentence that my husband left for me for the past week.  True that God didn’t say everything was perfect. And true that He did say that it was good.  So far, I’m okay with that.  But I take the imperfect things in my life kind of personally.  I feel the need to fix them, or to improve them, or to help them reach their perfect potential.  And I have an especially hard time leaving something at “good” when I know it could be better.  Yet, God did just that!  He could have made everything perfect if he had wanted to, but he didn’t.  He created everything and then he said that “it was good”.  Hmmm. 

I have realized over the past couple of years that there are some things around me that are not perfect and that I have taken those things on as personal failures.   Why can’t I fix it?  Where have I gone wrong?  What have I not done, or what have I done, that makes this situation less-than-perfect?  I am starting to realize that I beat my head against a wall and I beat myself up in the process of trying to smooth out the rough edges of life.  When I can’t make it right or I can’t work it out, somehow that equates to failure for me.  Imperfect.  Somehow the situation is not the only imperfect thing.  Somehow, I am labeled imperfect in my failure to make the world perfect.  Imperfect. That’s a tough label to accept for a championship perfectionist!

So my current walk with Him is a walk of learning to accept that sometimes things aren’t perfect, but they are good and that’s okay.  I’m trying to see things through the eyes of The Creator and see where He sees the good in something or someone, even though it isn’t perfection.  And I’m trying to accept the fact that this perfectionist is far from perfect and that I need to cut myself a little slack… Sometimes it’s just good, that that’s okay.