"Being Perfect"

I just read Anna Quindlen's "Being Perfect." I couldn't put it down...read it from front to back in like 30 minutes...(ok, so it only has like 48 pages, but still, it was great!).

Here are a few quotes from it that hit me:

She encourages the reader to, "Begin [every day] with that most frightening of all things, a clean slate. And then look, every day, at the choices you are making, and when you ask yourself why you are making them, find this answer: Because they are what I want, or wish for. Because they reflect who and what I am." (pg 19)

"Pursuing perfection makes you unforgiving of the faults of others." (pg 40)

On her closing page, she quotes George Eliot, "It is never too late to be what you might have been." (pg 48)

"What is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." (pg 15)

"But being a good parent is not generational, it is deeply personal, and it all comes down to this: If you can bring to your children the SELF THAT YOU TRULY ARE, as opposed to some amalgam of manners and mannerisms, expectations and fears that you have acquired as a carapace along the way, you will be able to teach them by example not to be terrorized by the narrow and parsimonious expectations of the world....Remember yourself from your own childhood days, when you were younger and rougher and wilder, more scrawl than straight line. Remember all of yourself, the flaws as well as the many strengths." (pg 39-40)


This is a great book...one I wish I had read much earlier, but thankful that I read it today!

Time with Him!

A friend, who leads the Bible Study I am in on Fridays, emailed this excerpt to our group today:

Modern man has lost the perspective of eternity. To distract himself
from the raging jaws of death, he engages in ceaseless activity and
amusement. The practice of being still in My Presence is almost a lost
art, yet it is this very stillness that enables you to experience My
eternal Love. You need the certainty of My loving presence in order to
weather the storms of life. During times of severe testing, even the
best theology can fail you if it isn't accompanied by experiential
knowledge of Me. The ultimate protection against sinking during life's
storms is devoting time to develop your friendship with Me.

I still need to find out what book this came from, so I can properly record it, but regardless, it is so true! Time with God through prayer, Bible Reading, worship, and simply being quiet to hear Him is so important.

I am reminded to ask God to see life from His Eternal perspective and to spend time with Him...so simple and yet, often forgotten.