Perfection

You can't add darkness to darkness to create light.
You can't add evil to evil to find good.

I love candlelight services. I love it when all of the lights go out and we sit in total silence and total darkness.

I like to sit and contemplate what that gigantic void must have been like before God changed it all.

Stillness, darkness, you can't see a thing. If no one is near you, you almost can't even feel a thing.

I find myself wondering if this is what death is like. Do you have a sense of something going on around you but other senses can't be engaged?  For a believer, it does not seem so scary, but what about for an unbeliever?  Is nothingness ok?  Do you just lie there like the Egyptians, with certain items to help you hope to get to the 'other side' - not really knowing what is out there?  Do you just drift away into dust?

I love it more when that first candle is lit in the darkness. That tiny little flame can allow you see the image of heads, bodies, people around you in the vast room. One TINY flame can do that.  All that darkness and ONE TINY FLAME....one bit of light.

I don't even need that passing of the flame where the whole room is eventually illuminated for that flame to get to my very soul.  One. Tiny. Flame.  One light in the darkness. Just one.

It is the most amazing visual object lesson that so clearly explains what the life of Jesus Christ did in the midst of a world filled with darkness, searching, despair, loneliness, pain, suffering.  The only example in all of history of a truly perfect life. Not just a good one. Not just an admirable one. A perfect one.

That elusive dream. The dream that I would or could be perfect.

I put that quest for perfectionism down almost 20 years ago. It was one of those times in life where God allowed me to be down for a while so I could be truly still and look up.

I came to realize that the quest for perfection, while noble, was not only exhausting, but unnecessary.   I came to realize that what He cared about was who I WAS and my relationship with Him - and not what I DID, however perfect, and even if it was all FOR Him.

I learned to back off. I learned that doing all things well was acceptable and perfect enough, as long as I had a strong and valued relationship WITH Christ.

Yes, I love that darkness, because it takes me back to what is really important.  Relationship.

I love the way that tiny light illuminates the faces of those near to the light. It softens everything. It brings calmness.  That is a lesson too.  Stay near the light. The light of Christ - learning of His life, having a relationship with Him, does something to the person called YOU.  It makes you more like Him in many, but not all ways.  We are not meant to be perfect, just to desire to be like the most perfect One.

Roger's Lesson:   I think you've got it, girl!  There in the flicker of a candle is the message of Christmas.  It is all about the relationship.

And every day, I continue - and I hope to have the time on this side of Heaven to get as close to the mark of my Maker, as is humanly possible....

......without stressing over perfection.