{"id":432,"date":"2018-01-11T03:42:14","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T03:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/?p=432"},"modified":"2018-01-11T03:42:14","modified_gmt":"2018-01-11T03:42:14","slug":"perfected-in-his-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/11\/perfected-in-his-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfected in His love…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I read a post on Instagram this morning that reminded me that I had not yet written of the experience of my 30 days of reflection without my reflection.<\/p>\n

Though the project only lasted–due to unforeseen circumstances in my life–for 17 of those planned 30 days, its insights deeply changed and blessed my life in ways that I hope will forever remain with me.<\/p>\n

I will not speak of everything I learned but I will share that my main take away from this experience–and the reason I was reminded of it from the Instagram post–is that the culprit for much of life’s dissatisfaction is perfectionism.<\/p>\n

I realized this in the early days of my experiment’s end when–feeling like a guilty child engaging in a forbidden activity–I still only looked at myself briefly with side-eyed glances just long enough to see that my makeup and hair were done properly and that I was<\/p>\n

Beautiful.<\/p>\n

Truly beautiful.<\/p>\n

Because without the hypnotic pull into perfectionism that (I’ve decided) is orchestrated by demons that live just beyond the looking glass,\u00a0 I had no flaws.\u00a0 Without perfectionism I saw the light of Christ reflected in me. Without perfectionism I saw His truth.\u00a0 Without perfectionism I saw His love.<\/p>\n

I saw this same beauty in the Instagram post I read this morning.\u00a0 The beauty of a loving family.\u00a0 Yet the author saw flaws.\u00a0 Her flaws.\u00a0 She spoke of how she nearly didn’t post the picture until… she changed her focus.\u00a0 From flaws to truth.\u00a0 From flaws to light.\u00a0 From flaws to love.\u00a0 The love of her beautiful family.<\/p>\n

Though I dare not claim that my 17 days of reflection without my reflection has freed me from the pull of perfectionism, covetousness and comparison (perhaps in this world of orchestrating demons I will never fully be free of such things) the understanding I have gained grants me a reprieve, a quick escape back to a place of truth.\u00a0 Back to a place of light.\u00a0 Back to a place of profound gratitude instead of a place of “Why hast thou made me thus?”<\/p>\n

Back to a place where I am His.<\/p>\n

And I am loved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read a post on Instagram this morning that reminded me that I had not yet written of the experience of my 30 days of reflection without my reflection. Though the project only lasted–due to unforeseen circumstances in my life–for 17 of those planned 30 days, its insights deeply changed and blessed my life in … Continue reading “Perfected in His love…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}