"The Projects" Gingerbread House

I realized today that I really don't put a lot of actual stuff from the Bible in here, and I am actually okay with that. I would like to put a little more because the Word of God is very important and is a good basis for us all, but I guess, I want my blog to be more about how I see God in my everyday life. What stories I have that portray Him and what I've learned. It's also definitely important to see Him in our everyday life and look for His Hand and Smile!

Lesson for Today: Patience and Peace lessens Perfectionism. (Its a triple P- inside joke for myself haha)

Today, I made my first gingerbread house! Yes, that is correct, I am 18 and I have never made a gingerbread house. I don't actually like gingerbread, and my family has simply never made them. It's not been one of our traditions... But I made them with a group of 6 other people, and it was a blast. I had soooo much fun.

Recently, God has really been teaching me patience and peace and how important those are and how much I have lacked them. And PATIENCE has been a really hard one for me to learn, and it took God making me COMPLETELY dependent on Him to provide and do His Will in order for me to learn it and really understand what patience is. Am I perfect at patience? No, not at all. I still got mad today when I was out this afternoon and people evidently were not having a very good driving day, making me sit through a red light 3 times... But I'm working on it. I now understand what long term patience looks like and what it means to be dependent on God and trust that He will in fact provide. And it's still hard because having to wait is never fun, but I'm okay with the waiting because I know God has something amazing planned at the end of the waiting! And so through His work in me on patience and peace, He has lessened my perfectionism. I have been a complete perfectionist for as long as I can remember. Throughout my schooling career (elementary to high school/ when I went to Clayton) if I didn't get an A, that wasn't good enough for me. If my project was not top notch, then it wasn't good enough. I wouldn't do things if there was any chance of failure, because failure meant that I wasn't good enough and thus, if I was going to fail, then I wanted no part. I would beat myself up inside on not being good enough if my thing, whatever it might be, wasn't the best of the best. 

Well, back to me making a gingerbread house, mine was far from being the best of the best. Mine honestly looked like a 5 year old made it. My hands got COVERED in icing and my roof kept falling off. And my design wasn't super detailed. And I was COMPLETELY okay with it; in fact, I had fun making "The Projects" of our little gingerbread village. I had a lot of fun. Why? Because God has strongly lessened my need for perfectionism. Had I made a gingerbread house last year, I would have been sure to make it so detailed and neat and if it wasn't, inside, I would have gone away defeated and miserable. I wouldn't have had near as much fun as I did! I would have wanted it to look like a gingerbread house that came out of magazine, despite the fact that I had never made one before so I had no experience on how to build one. I would have still wanted it to be the best one there.

But now, I don't have to be the best of the best at everything because God did not make me to be the best of the best at everything. He made me to be me, who may be good at science, but awful at architecture. haha. Who may be pretty good at math, but not very good with English. When we become patient and peaceful, we learn that God is in control, but also that our worth in not found in our own efforts. Our worth in found in God and if He provides our worth, then we will be filled with joy and we will be able to accept the things we are not good at and have fun anyway! Patience and Peace will lessen perfectionism as long as you truly surrender to God! And Let Him give you worth and not the things you accomplish!