Be ye therefore perfect.

That's said quite often at our church, the ultimate goal, to reach perfection. I hear that and I think to myself " Yikes" and then, aways it is followed by " We are NOT expected to BE perfect, now, that is, we are merely expected to be striving towards it" My head hears " We are not expected to be perfect" and I exhale and think " Phew, that's alright then, I'm doing OK " and I snuggle down with my feelings of mediocrity and carry on as normal.
Today though, I feel differently. I don't feel comfortable with mediocrity anymore and I am sure that it is time for me to strive a bit harder towards being perfect ( which is oh so far away)
The thing is, we are all going to have different ideas of what perfection is aren't we? So, in fact I could BE perfect in one person's eyes and pretty near to the opposite in another's. ( what IS the opposite of perfect I wonder?)
It is time for me to stop leaning on H and his example and begin to join in, open my heart and my mouth and let my light shine ( I am a veritable cliche aren't I?) I have to start thinking about all the ways I can improve myself and make my family stronger. I shut down years ago, I think 5 years ago, so overwhelmed by the enormity of the emotional issues I was faced with, so saddened by events out of my control, I simply stopped.
Everything.
Thinking, feeling, trying, you name it, I stopped it and all I did was get up, breathe, go to bed, repeat.
I haven't been aware of feeling coming back, there hasn't been a flash of light or a day of enlightenment, I just find myself here, now ready to move on. Which is actually huge, I am still in the state of running on the spot Umming a lot and Er....hmmmmmm, I should, um, yes, maybe...I'm there. No clue where to even begin but knowing I should.
I'm sure if I asked around there would be people willing to tell me where to start, which never works, does it? Having people tell you where you are going wrong is a sure fire way to make you dig your heels in whilst yelling that they got it all wrong! There's no point asking people unless you are ready to hear what they have to say, unless you actually intend to hear and then act on, the things they think...which hurts. If I ask anyone how I could better myself they would tell me all the things I am not ready to hear, work on, change. No, this is something that I have to work on myself, think about, pray about and then get on with it.
I know that I need to DO more, read more, learn more, act more and BE more. I don't think that the past 5 years have been wasted, I have done what I was capable of doing, what I needed to do simply to survive. Getting up and breathing was a major accomplishment if you ask me, I did breathing in a spectacular way. Now the challenge is on to breathe AND do....tough call.
What am I going to do? You may well ask.
I am going to read the scriptures, properly, thinking and learning and actually using what I learn. When H reads to the boys in the morning I will be there, participating not just enjoying the quiet 10 minutes.
I want to pray more because I rarely pray. I have convinced myself that if I am meant to know it, have it, experience it, it will happen, be there anyway. The thing is, when my children are away from me, I love to hear from them. Just a hello on Face Book, a quick call to let them know they are thinking of me. I am a child of God, He may just want to hear from me every now and again, just because. Not because I need something or want something or am complaining about my lot.
I grew up with prayer such a big part of my life, my mum and dad showed us how great prayer can be, how calming and reassuring. I have seen and learned that prayer works, absolutely. We prayed as a family, we were taught how to pray and that e could pray anytime and anywhere and I so want my children to know the same things I know. Isaac has enormous faith in prayer, when we had the old black car from freecycle, it would die often, we would get into the car and it would be completely dead, not even turn over. One day Isaac and I had been out , we were tired and it was cold, we got into the car and it wouldn't start, I tried every trick in the book and nothing made that jalopy start. I looked at Isaac and said "well, we've tried everything, it won't work, shall we try a prayer?" He looked at me as if I was crazy and then said "Ok then"
I said a simple prayer and said that we were tired and cold and that we really needed to get home and asked that the car would start and we would get home safely.
The car started the very next try, Isaac was so excited, from then on every time that car died he would say the same " well just pray then" and every time he was with me and we prayed, it would start. If I was on my own I can't say it worked because I often didn't pray.
Be ye as little children we are told. So, I am going to pray more and more sincerely.
I am going to truly enjoy the things that make me happy, make the most of, glory in, not take for granted. Time flies by and so many opportunities are lost because I don't make the time to do great things.
I have a list as long as your arm ( how long is that by the way? Is it as long as that piece of string?) of things I wish I could do, I might pick one of those and learn how to do it. ( and this is where I am supposed to actually list one of those things so I can come back and check whether I did it or not. Cake making / decorating and playing the piano are 2 of those things, don't put money on either!)
I am going to think more about every day things, you know, in a tree huggy kind of way, I have seen the difference good food makes to how I feel and look, I want to start thinking more about other ways to be 'green' too many chemicals and money used in our house, I want to start using good stuff like lemons and vinegar, Dan bought me some organic soaps and lotions for Christmas ( that came packed in recyclable boxes and surrounded in POPCORN! Heh, not that we ate any or anything but so much better than that styrofoam nonsense) I just had a marvellous shower and washed with a big old lump of porridge, I am all clean and organic. Smell me!
I see how possible it is to cure myself by the way I live, rather than drugs. My goal is to be able to stop all my blood pressure medication, to avoid any need for insulin, I would love to completely cure my insomnia, for 23 years I have survived on 4 hours sleep a night, these days I am sleeping for 7 hours, every night! I still feel weary in the afternoon but wonder if that isn't a mix of habit and the fact that my body is catching up on all those years of being so sleep deprived. I am sure that as I become more active, that will improve.
Oh, Gemma just reminded me, today was a testimony meeting at church and H stood up, not something he usually does, he was very sweet and I love to hear what he has to say because he only ever says things he has thought about and means.
He said how he has goals for our family and that he so wants the boys to know the truthfulness of the Gospel and scriptures etc and then, right at the end ( when he was probably watching me trying to hold Eli still, threaten Isaac and click my fingers in a 'you'd better be quite right now or I will beat you' way at Seth, thinking I was busy and wouldn't hear him) he said " I so want Helen to know that I love and appreciate her" See? He knows how to do it, don't say it for a year and then go for it, in public...he gets a years worth of brownie points for that because everyone KNOWS how all that emotional stuff is so foreign to him, when he says that, in those circumstances, it isn't because he wants to impress the other people hearing him, it's because he wanted ME to know and by saying it right then , he showed me as well as told me? He is a genius in a quiet and understated way. I would bake him a cake if I didn't think I would eat more of it than him.
I want to find ways to enjoy the time H and I have, together. We are wont to spend a ot of time in companionable silence, which is all well and good but something tells me that maybe we could be closer if we did more than that occassionally. Of course he would have to agree to that too and he might just love companionable silence ( I think he really like silence of any kind truth be told!)
So, here we are all ready to become new and improved, to be closer to perfection and use our time more wisely. I love the new Year!