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So, I’m about to let you in on a secret. A big one! Come closer. A little closer. Are you ready? Okay, this may come as a surprise, but, I’m not perfect. I know, I know. It’s shocking. According to every job interview I’ve had, I’d say the exact opposite rings true, but alas, I’m not. *sigh*

I guess I’m writing on this topic this week in hopes that others need to hear this in the same way that I have voraciously needed to hear it. The Christmas season has me thinking so much. And not just about how many third-degree burns I’ll have this year from my hot glue gun (because I am that girl). I’ve been thinking about why I always feel like there is so much pressure this time of the year? From Thanksgiving through Christmas, so many of us pine away (no pun intended) trying to make everything we do just right. We scour Pinterest for hours looking for tablescape ideas . . . guilty! For the perfect new cranberry sauce recipe to try instead of that tried and true cranberry-in-a-can recipe . . . oh yeah, totally guilty! Possibly looking for ways to catch Mr. Right under the mistletoe this holiday season . . . not sure if I’m admitting guilt here. Either way, there always seems to be so much pressure to deliver, to perform.

Once we leave Thanksgiving and Christmas behind, we’re met with more expectations and more pressure. New Year’s. I love New Year’s so much! As someone who appreciates, and dare I say, enjoys change, New Year’s offers me so much joy. I get a fresh, clean slate. A whole year full of potential and opportunities. I can kiss last year and all my failed resolutions goodbye, because when the clock strikes midnight on January 1, I’m a new woman! Full of so much hope, gumption, and drive. I set New Year’s resolutions, and I set the bar high. Unattainably high! But I love the challenges I set for myself every year. I like a good ol’ challenge as much as the next girl trying to lose 35 pounds in a week, all while eating her weight in sweets—I’m not advocating for either of those as resolutions!

So, I started to think some more. Why do I feel like there is so much pressure to be just “right” or to do the “right” things? Why do I have to set these lofty resolutions when I know, more than likely, I’ve set them so incredibly high that any normal human being could never reach them? I started to dissect all of this. What is “right” and why is “right” that important? Why do I get angry or disappointed when things can’t be just right and perfect the way I expect them to? What does perfect look like anyway? And I think in the midst of all that, I started asking myself the most important question: when would perfect become perfect enough? Is it that I was striving for perfection the whole time (whatever that is), or was I just trying to fill a void to make me feel enough?

Ladies, we all suffer from it. It’s exhausting. It’s tiring. It’s futile. And I dare to say, it has brutalized so many women and men. These feelings of inadequacy are never-ending. We compare and contrast all day, sizing up other women to help us determine where our self-worth lies. The scariest part—the feelings of inadequacies and struggles don’t happen solely in the secular world. How many times have you compared yourself to that one mom who blogs about all her new Pinterest projects and the eighteen Bible studies she facilitates, while you feel down-beaten and trodden from chasing a two-year-old all day? Or how you feel when you talk to your friends from church about your choice of schooling for your kids—private, public, or homeschooling? Or how about how you look at that one girl in your apartment complex who always seems to have the right things to say, and has Mr. Christianity on her arm to prove it?

Quite frankly, this perfectionism we say we don’t live by is enslaving. It gets in the way of Christ’s work.

There’s a quote I found recently by Voltaire that says “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Now, I’m not advocating that we start following the practices and philosophies of Voltaire because he was about as warm to Christianity as nails to a chalkboard from what I can tell. But I think there is some truth in his statement. Change the “g” in good to a capital “G” and I think he may have really been on to something. “The perfect is the enemy of the Good.” That’s what it’s really about. Our desires and aims to be perfect inhibit our ability to share the Good. Doesn’t that just sting? Through likely unintentional means, we are hindering ways in which the Lord might choose to use us.

Let’s stop substituting perfect for every other adjective we use to define ourselves. We don’t need to be the perfect wife, mom, friend, or woman to be enough. Enough is enough. And that’s all because of the work of Christ on the cross. Revel in that and praise Jesus that He made a way out from the dark (but well-manicured) hole of perfectionism we often sit in. So, if you’re not a perfectionist like myself, or if you’re in denial about being Mary Poppins (practically perfect in every way), I entreat you, as we transition from 2014 to 2015 (yikes!), to change your perspective on your resolutions. Resolve to pursue holiness, not perfection. Don’t give in to the pressure to look, act, speak the “right” way. It’s overrated—and have I mentioned exhausting? I pray we’ll look to see our perfection in Jesus Christ and, more than that, to seek righteousness and things of virtue. Praise Him because you are not perfect. Praise Him for you are His.

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” —Philippians 3:12