Complete.....

I have been particularly joyful the last few days because I finally feel like I'm completing all of the tasks, projects, responsibilities that I've had going for the last 6 months. The Master Gardener certification...check! The bookkeeping for the high school fall play....check! The Women's Retreat...check! Christmas...check, check, check!!! It feels SO good to be complete! Sure, there are some new things beginning, like the high school spring musical (Grease...Mal was cast as Frenchie! or is it Frenchy...anyway, you get it.) But it's been a LONG time since I felt like I was finished with everything that I had been doing before I started a new round of "projects." I've caught up with whatever correspondence I needed to write, I'm back on my blog, I've caught up reading the blogs I like to follow. Wow....this feels WONDERFUL!

Even though some stuff is complete, I'm not...and that REALLY makes me JOYFUL!!!! As a recovering perfectionist, my goal was not only to be finished, but to be finished on my time schedule, to finish with perfection, and to never have to re-do the work I've already completed. OH BOY...was that attitude a big giant X on the top of my head. I can just imagine God chuckling as Dan Copper dunked me in the baptismal. Not that I thought that baptism was the end of the journey, I knew I'd learn more about God's Word, but I thought I was pretty good just the way I was. What a heavenly ha ha that must have been! "Hey Gabriel, hey Michael...not only does this one think she's got it all under control, not only does she go by her own measure of 'perfection,' but she thinks one day she gonna wake up and she'll be this completed, all wise, all knowing Christian. She thinks those kind actually exist! This is going to be quite a shock to her!"

So God put me through a few "test" trials to see if I'd catch on before he had to hit me with the heavy artillery. Can you say stubborn! Every time I went through something and realized I actually LEARNED something and matured a little...I figured I had it all figured out. Then I'd do the same stupid things and get myself in the same situation, and I had to have a review and a retake of the test. Just when I thought I had that lesson down...something else would happen. Are you getting the picture?

Some how, some way, I caught on. Perfectionism, well I finally learned that my idea of perfectionism and God's are two different things. I thought I could reach perfection in all I did, even though I knew that I myself was not perfect. No logic there! Only a perfect being could "do" anything perfectly, so I had to learn to stop beating myself up everytime I failed in my own eyes. God has promised me I will be perfect someday, just not in this lifetime!

"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6

I LOVE that scripture! I LOVE that promise. I'm going to get there! And even better- it's not going to be because of anything I do, it's because of ONE THING Jesus did! He bore my imperfection. God's going to keep working on me in the meantime. And for some reason, even thought growth hurts, I've come to find joy in that. I can look back and see that God loves me enough to take the time to keep showing me that I can stretch and grow in ways that I never thought I could, or never knew I needed to. He'll patiently teach me the same lesson over and over if necessary, even though it's painful. I choose to surrender, and God takes care of the rest.

That's my only contribution... my choice to surrender. Making that choice did not come easy for me. But those "test" trials, they weren't just for God to see me in action...it was for me to see HIM in action. It was so I would learn to trust HIM before he laid the heavy stuff on me. And before the enemy launched attacks. And when I saw what God can do...it doesn't make the trials and battles less painful...but it does let me know that one way or another, I'll be standing with God at the end of it, whether that be here, or in the next life.

So when I was puttering around after church, completing a few last details from 2008, and enjoying it, Philippians 1:6 popped into my head, and then this blog post came out.

Also, take a look at Pattie's post for today. She thinking about the same kind of thing. Check out her current"theme" song, "Whatever You're Doing."


"Cause He's still workin' on me....."