12 Days Until Christmas

You can't be perfect. It's a proven fact. You cannot make anything perfect. That's a proven fact too. Nothing in this world is perfect, yet we are obsessed with perfection--the perfect look, the perfect grade, the perfect boyfriend/girlfriend, the perfect family, the perfect athlete, and even the perfect Christmas. We live in a society that literally is obsessed with perfection. And it is all to easy to get caught up in trying to make everything perfect.

Just this past week I myself went through what I like to call "perfection syndrome." Today all it took was a little wake-up call that came bumping into my life to make me realize something extremely important about perfection. It is the moments we miss that we are trying desperately hard to make perfect. Read that again: it is the moments we miss that we are trying desperately hard to make perfect. Does that make sense? When you try so hard to make everything perfect, you are really missing out on living life to the fullest.

The first Christmas was everything less than perfect. Mary, a teenage virgin, suddenly was pregnant--now that is completely unexplainable! Mary and Joseph had to travel all the way back to Bethlehem and by the time Mary was ready to give birth to Jesus, there were no hotel rooms left. Mary had to deliver the Savior of the world in a dirty, stinky stable filled with smelly animals! After she gave birth--which did not include a nice hospital room, nurses' help, or pain killers--a crowd of shepherds who she didn't even know came to see the baby! Mary's first child didn't come exactly as she had planned it, yet instead of trying to make everything perfect, she went with what God was doing. She was able to live miraculous moments in time because she wasn't trying to make them perfect! In fact, she even "treasured all of these things in her heart" (Luke 2:19).

Take time to really live the moments God blesses you with this Christmas instead of trying to make the perfect.