Perfection When It's Not So Perfect

Two Thursdays ago I realized that it was the day before the Curious George colouring contest on CBC Kids. The boys sort of wanted to be in the contest, but I REALLY wanted them to be. For those who know me, I just love winning - especially when there is a prize involved :) . So I tried to get the kids all excited about the contest, "yay yay"...Ty was excited with me and right away he started drawing a picture of Curious George...and then he coloured another picture of Curious George. Meanwhile, Ethan was sitting on the couch watching TV. I kept asking Ethan to draw his picture and told him that we were going to run out of time. My plan was to get it mailed out by 9:00 a.m. so that it would hopefully get to CBC by the following day. So finally Ethan dragged himself to the table and started scribbling. I was sitting right there watching him like a hawk. You see, normally Ethan is this boy who takes pride in his drawings - he likes his pictures to be perrrrrrrrfect! I was giving him this look like, "what's that?" Then I told him, "look Ethan, if you don't want to do this then just say so!" (hoping he wouldn't say "I don't" and walk away) I gave him a new piece of paper. So the whole time, as he is colouring this picture, I was watching him and even trying to choose the right colours for him and tell him where to put his balloons. Poor kid. I felt a sense of disappointment as he was colouring. His drawing wasn't good enough for me - for this contest. I wanted it to be perfect. I started judging his colouring and comparing it to Ty's. I could see that Ty put a good effort into his drawing...in fact, I wondered how it could be that Ty's drawing looked even better than Ethan's (who is 21 months older).

So he finally completed his drawing...and we were able to mail them out. But I couldn't stop thinking about how silly I was behaving. I was making such a big deal out of of this whole colouring contest - at Ethan's expense.

I later apologized to Ethan. Forgiveness is not always easy to ask or give. Saying "sorry" to our children can be difficult. We want to appear perfect in their eyes. But showing that we are imperfect will help our children accept that they are also imperfect. When we model forgiveness, compassion and acceptance for our children, they will learn how to willingly accept, generously give and graciously forgive - a perfect way to handle imperfection.

This whole ordeal also made me think about the gentleness and gracefulness of God. God does not demand perfection from us. He lets us make mistakes, and through those mistakes we learn (although sometimes it may take a few times). I don't ever want my boys to feel like they have to do things perfectly, and I don't ever want them to feel like I never make mistakes. Not one of us is perfect; we are only made perfect in Christ.

Philippians 3:12