Skip to main content

Peace over Perfection

When I became a mother I really wanted to do it right. I read so many books about pregnancy, labor, healthy sleep, breastfeeding, child training. Let me share a secret with you that took me a long time to learn: perfection is impossible. Don't aim for it! Don't do it. Don't even think about trying..... Really. We all want to do this motherhood gig well but perfectionism is a trap because perfection is impossible to define let alone to obtain. Aiming at perfection will make you lose your peace. Here is the crazy thing! Perfection looks nothing like peace but peace looks a whole lot like perfection. I find that when my focus is on perfection: having a perfectly clean house, perfectly behaved children, or a perfect physique, I obtain none of those things. Instead I turn into a mean mommy and a grumpy wife. But when I focus on peace: make manageable goals for cleaning, take time to engage my children's hearts, have realistic and healthy expectations for physical fitness, and most importantly keep my heart in a place of rest, I not only have peace but I also start seeing the outward things I was striving for happen organically. Peace is a higher goal than perfection and strangely it is more obtainable than perfection. Aim at peace and you will get a bit of perfection thrown in, aim at perfection and you will get neither (to pirate and butcher a C.S. Lewis quote). I have failed more times than I care to admit to keep my focus in the correct place but that is okay because I am not perfect. As a recovering perfectionist I make peace with the fact that I will struggle with perfectionism for a long time. What matters more is that I stay on the journey to make peace in my heart and in my home. When my children are grown I want them to remember a mom that was filled with peace not obsessed with perfection. I have this scripture verse on my refrigerator to remind myself to aim at peace every day. James 3:18 "A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." Instead of focusing on the perfect harvest I choose to focus on peace. This blog is my outlet to write about the things I am doing in my home and heart to be a peacemaker. I hope it inspires and encourages you. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Testament Verses- PEACE

When I started writing this blog I had no idea that the title would prove to be so timely in this season of my life. Peace over perfection. Perfection is officially impossible to maintain. That ship has sailed but I am pursuing peace. My baby girl is 6 months old now and the boys are 2 and 4. Life is a bit of a whirlwind and sometimes it's difficult to keep up. I've had some definite low moments this past month. It's strange that the one theme God keeps bringing me back to is PEACE. It's strange because life with all these little people around me and needing me is really anything but peaceful. I want to remember this year as a year marked with a deep rooted unshakeable peace. A peace that surpasses all understanding. I decided it was time to do a word study on peace. So below I listed out all the verses that stuck a cord with me from the New Testament. 2 Peter 3:14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or bl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tis the Season

One of my favorite things about being a stay at home mom is that I appreciate the seasons more than I ever have. Before kids I worked full time and every day was pretty much the same no matter if it was the middle of July or the dead of winter. Wake up, make coffee, commute to work, do the work, commute home, eat dinner, and sleep. When your day is spent in a climate controlled office the seasons do not impact you much- unless the weather affects your commute. But now as a stay at home mom the change of seasons dramatically changes my day to day. In the summer we go outside and play in the pool as much as possible, in the fall we rake leaves and jump in puddles, and in the winter we snuggle with picture books and decorate Christmas cookies. I love that being a mom makes me stop and acknowledge the seasons. But there are other seasons when you are a parent of little ones that are not as enjoyable- the season of postpartum hormones and sleep deprivation, bed wetting and three yea...
Post a Comment
Read more

Underfoot: How I organize all the toys that live with us

        Clutter makes me twitch. One of my favorite activities when the boys and baby girl are napping is to walk around the house with a trash bag and load it up with anything that seems superfluous. Every few months I manage to fill at least two full trash bags to donate. How does all this stuff get in my home?!!   Toys are the biggest offenders and they are always underfoot because the play area in our home is also the family room. I fantasize sending my boys upstairs to play happily together in an imaginary bonus room for a couple hours while I work on projects downstairs, clean, exercise, cuddle baby girl, or have a cup of tea…. Um… who am I kidding? I have two beautiful, healthy, rambunctious boys who are two and three years old. They need a mom intervention every two minutes. I referee their wrestling matches, negotiate toy kidnappings, and kiss owies all day long. They also love to be with me, right in the middle of whatever I am doing...
Post a Comment
Read more