I drove past this man once who was beating (I presume) his wife whilst trying to drive his car. He was so violent – unlike anything I can remember ever seeing. In the moment of driving past I could see right into her eyes and she was defenseless against the merciless onslaught of this man. What on earth did she do to ‘deserve’ that kind of treatment? I cried for an hour afterward just thinking about it...
I saw a woman once ‘disciplining’ her child with such harshness and impatience that I got in my car and left in tears because I couldn’t stand the sight of that little girl’s spirit being crushed over shampoo in her eyes. I cried all the way home...
The first thing I bought myself when I left home was an iron. I remember my mom never getting dressed unless she has ironed her outfit for the day because she didn’t want to look like someone who climbed out of a laundry basket; all creased. She would have her clothes washed and ironed, and then she would iron it again before wearing it on the particular day. It had to be perfect. When I left home I mimicked a lot of my mom’s behavior because I believed that that was the way it should be done.
As I became older I realized that some of her ways did not work for me anymore and I started feeling the liberty of making changes and doing things in my home the way I preferred them instead. I slowly started becoming the person I wanted to be. Up to that point her way was the only ‘right’ way and I so desperately wanted to please my mom. In my heart and mind it was about being good enough to earn her love. Missing the mark could mean love being withheld – like punishment. So if I could get everything just right – just the way she liked/preferred it – then I would be good enough, and maybe then I would feel loved... Growing up though, I never really felt that... loved... without performing to earn it.
The question that started rising up in my heart and mind as I started journeying with God was: where is the balance between getting it perfect and crushing someone’s spirit over the so called imperfection – remember, according to my idea of perfection/imperfection?
A dear friend of mine feels very strongly about a tidy house. This is a difficult concept when you have small children. Even though one can teach them to be tidy, you can never (realistically) have a home the same as someone who don’t have children. Kids will be kids... However, this friend of mine used to have horrible anger tantrums over a less than perfectly neat home and this little girl wasn’t quite catching on to the lesson her mom was trying to teach her about being tidy. Instead she had to bear the brunt of her mother’s anger. Somewhere along the line of this experience I started asking myself, “is it really more important to have a tidy house so that you would rather crush a precious little girl’s spirit than have a few things out of place?”
This, and a few other experiences, really taught me that sometimes we have to choose between perfection and relationship. What is more important to us; the thing or the person...?
Because of not understanding grace and mercy for myself I used to be VERY hard on myself – there was no room for error, or you were disqualified. I treated others the same way because I didn’t know how to show mercy and grace to others. (...can’t give what you don’t have...) Through this learning curve I started realizing that sometimes the imperfect scenario is not worth hurting the relationship (or the spirit of another person) over it. I started learning to weigh it up in the moment and choose my response more wisely. The thing is just that, not only had I often hurt the other person, but through hurting the relationship I really also hurt myself. I started feeling that it was really a loose-loose situation. Was it really worth it??? In most cases... NO! People are imperfect – will always be – so if we’re looking for perfection you have a very good chance of ending up a very lonely person because there would be no one to be in relationship with.
Last night I messed up quite badly. For me – if it was I looking at an outside party, I don’t think it was THAT big a deal, but for my friend, it was a VERY big deal! So much so that she refused to spend the rest of the evening with me. She didn’t say anything about what bothered her and I would honestly not have guessed what the truth was, but in the end of the evening she chose to change the plans we had and went home instead, ‘dismissing’ me. Later on she let me know about what bothered her and it made more sense to me then.
My heart felt very sad about her decision to call it a night. I had so looked forward to spending the time with her. I really felt that what bothered her was not such a big deal that I – that WE - had to loose out on spending precious time together. What makes me even more sad is the fact that I can never have this evening over again. It is time that is lost forever...
We have to be so careful about the choices we make, because every action (choice) has a consequence. Does the punishment really fit the crime? Do we cut our own nose and think that we spite someone else’s face? (Someone said it well once... it is like drinking poison thinking the other person is going to die...) If you have to put that which bothers you, and the choice/consequence about how to handle it in a scale, which weighs more in the greater scheme of things?
I realize that I cannot turn back the clock and do any of it over. I cannot fix it. I am not perfect, and that was not the last mistake I’ll ever make... But another question that rises up in my mind is whether the mistake was worthy of the ‘punishment’? Was it really more important to my friend that this small, innocent gesture didn’t suit her, than it was important to put the two minutes of it aside and spend the whole rest of the evening with me in a pleasant way? The thing is, in the end, if I understand it correctly, the choice my friend made caused both of us to loose out on something very precious... time together. Was it really worth it...? Time that you can never have back...?
Did I learn a lesson from it...? No. The hurt of my heart is what stands out more in this memory. The hurt over disappointing my friend, and the hurt for lost time that I will never have back, no matter how much I wish that I could have done it different, done it better. All the wishing and desiring in the world does not change a thing...
It is 3:20am... I can’t sleep because my heart is troubled over things not being right with my friend...
I’m remembering a blog I wrote a while back on “dressed for the occasion”... It reminds me of who I used to be... I’ve posted it again in adding to my experience of tonight...
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