My Name is Kris and I'm a Perfectionist

I'm a perfectionist and it keeps me in chains. I'm afraid to fail and i don't know why? I'm afraid to write because I want it to feel good and smart and tidy on the first draft and since I know it wont, I simply don't write. Even my house is kept tidy all the time! It's not clean, but it's tidy. My garden is tidy, planted nicely in rows, weeded continuously, yard mowed, trees mulched, barn swept clean. My life is a tidy mess! I don't know any other way to live.

I like things in their place. So what doe's this say about my soul? As a child I never wanted to be a bother, I hated conflict, I wanted to please. I was really good at reading clues and most of the non-verbal clues came from my dad, who was a good man, but looks tired and detached in almost every photo I have of him. I don't have a memory of my father's laughter, not one memory of him
delighting in me, his only daughter. So I became a perfectionist. But life is messy, and "things tend towards randomness." The world needs more people like me to put everything back in place.

Now I'm the one who looks tired in pictures. Sleep is like a friend who never calls, she just shows up when she wants and doesn't stay long. I dream in abstract pictures like pieces of a puzzle that need to be put together, but they never quite fit. Seriously, I had that dream this week. I've always prided myself as a person who isn't lead by fear. I never think anything bad is going to happen. I don't obsess about people I love dying. I don't have a secret savings account or put up red flags when my entrepreneur  husband wants to take another business risk, but I'm a perfectionist and I'm pretty sure there's fear inside those 13 letters.

I have a fear of failure and I still don't know what that even means. What would "failure" look like? A failed marriage is about the worst predicimate  I can think of and I love my husband with every cell in my body. My heart still jumps when he walks in a room.  We have six grown children and they are producing our grandchildren at a staggering rate. Our marriage isn't going to fail. I can't even think of another scenario that looks like failure that is real. So it's all just an allusion of failure, just like perfection is an allusion. The only thing perfect is love, and love is a person who died on a cross and lives inside my heart. 1 John 4:18 states, "There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear." Perfect love casts out perfectionism!

    

                                     "Perfection is the garden in full bloom!"