Silent Killer

There are scars all over my heart. Healed marks where I've sliced and gouged and scraped my soul with self-recriminations, shame and guilt. These are the price I pay for my inevitable failures when chasing perfection. In my head I know that this quest is impossible, but my heart demands that I try. It's not enough to do my best, to live with integrity. I'm not enough unless I'm perfect. Any flaw or falling short of the standard must be punished. Atonement has to be made for imperfection. And so I bleed repentance and sorrow. I inflict the pain of it on my soul as penance, while perfection slowly suffocates the life out of my spirit. Perfection is a silent killer.

But perfection is also a liar. It screams that the burden of being perfect is all up to me. It whispers that there must be something wrong with me if I fail to measure up. It's very definition flickers in shadows. What is perfection. How is it determined?

But when I look to the source of Truth I realize perfection was never demanded of me. I was called to live a righteous life which is very different from living a perfect one. Perfection is rigid, harsh, unrelenting and unforgiving. But living a righteous life means living by grace and grace is not a taskmaster. Grace does the work of righteous and holy living then gives me the credit. Grace is unfallible, inexhaustible and motivated by love. If perfection is a silent killer, then righteousness is grace made alive in me. So, I am giving up on chasing perfection and it's impossible standard. I'm ready to let grace work in me.