One Mormon Woman's Thoughts on Being Perfect

If you haven't read Girl in a Whirl, you should. Even though it was lengthy, I shared it when I gave a talk in church recently. Because it's a reminder of how much we are encouraged to do with our lives. The gospel is not a to-do list. I remember when I was a teenager in seminary I would think to myself every evening, as long as I have read my scriptures and prayed, if Christ came tonight I would be ready. That thinking was good in that it helped me develop good, righteous habits. But the biggest reason that those simple things made a difference was because praying and reading my scriptures every night CHANGED me. 

Before I got married I thought I was pretty swell. I got good grades, had a good job, and lots of friends. I figured the only thing I needed was a man. And after Mr. Right came along, I truly had my heaven on earth. Getting married is the best decision I ever made. I love him, he loves me (Barney anyone?) and we love the Lord. He makes me laugh and buys me flowers. He lets me tell him Disneyland trivia and we get to kiss and cuddle as much as we'd like! But the reason that marrying him has been so good for me, is because getting married opened a whole new can of worms when it came to expectations on myself.

I NEVER cook dinner. (Read as: I cook dinner maybe once a month or less) I gained weight over our first year of marriage that I am fighting to lose. I hate making the bed (a habit from college life) and because of me we got two cats that get hair all over everything. My husband never complains about any of this, but he doesn't have to, because it affects me anyway. 

I dreamed of getting married and being the perfect wife. I dreamed of my husband bragging to his friends about how amazing his wife is, and his co-workers seeing pictures of me and being jealous of his beautiful (and smart!) arm candy. Getting married opened a can of worms for me because simply put, I. AM. NOT. PERFECT. Which in turn means there's no way I could be the perfect wife. 

In my search for solace over my imperfections I found this quote...

"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can just be good."

Good. I think I could be that. I could be a good student, and a good wife. A good daughter. A good visiting teacher. A good righteous daughter of God. 

We don't have to be perfect, God doesn't expect us to. Jeffrey R Holland said...

"Except in the case of His only Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we."

We need to do just that. Suck it up and deal with our imperfections. We don't have to be perfect, we can just be good.