Addicted...

Nay, enslaved to perfection. That is what I am. And it gives me so much grief. And worse, I have realized this addiction causes me to sin terribly. When I strive for perfection beyond reason and to the point that I cause pain to other members of the family by being irritable and grouchy to those I love - simply because my house is not perfect or because I am not meeting goals I have made for myself, then I am committing the most grievous sin of all, I am breaking the First Commandment.

"I am the LORD your God (who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery) Thou shalt have no other gods before Me... .."

If I allow the seeking of perfection, and artificial perfection at that, to injure those I love than I am indeed putting my goals ahead of God, who commands me to love my neighbour as I love myself; I am being most disobedient to my Heavenly Father.

Does the condition of my house matter more to God than my spiritual state, or how my lack of charity towards my children leads them to sin? For I know that when I am cross and speak in a gruff manner to one of my children or answer them with sarcasm that they in turn inevitably do the same to one another.

And when I do this to one of them, I also do this to Christ, my brother.

This is just not acceptable and I who have been seeking a cross to offer up have just found one. My lack of perfection. I have been wanting something to offer up as a works during the day and instead of offering up a clean room to God, I will instead offer up the un-swept pile by the front door, the mounds of boxes yet unpacked. I will offer up a story read to my child when I really want to attack those boxes of books and set them tidily on the shelves now finally set up. In this way, together with God, I will achieve perfection. Hopefully it will be the perfection of my soul, rather than of my house.