Perfect Moments

I love to wake up in the morning and peek out the window to look at Green Mountain. Green Mountain is like my day to day life. It is always different, always changing, always beautiful. It is also my weather forcast. I know what shirt to slip into just by taking a peek at the mountain.

Today it was blanketed in fog. Tendrils of it crept in between its valleys, and smudged the edges of the hills until they were indiscernable against the sky. It made me shiver to look at it, and as my left hand pulled away the blinds, my right hand reached for a hoodie. Walking outside, rain made my hair leap into tighter ringlets and my flip flops flung droplets of water onto the bottom of my jeans.

I have been thinking a lot recently about perfection and perfect joy. Although naturally optimistic the past two years have me pondering this simple truth: all happiness is laced with underlying sadness. My joy at escaping my summer job and propelling myself headfirst into my beloved musical studies and even more beloved friends was tinted with the sad grey of leaving my first and best friend behind. I rejoiced to see my brother get married to his beautiful Russian wife, but mourned the brokenness of the family that gave him away. I exhult daily over the promise that my present and future life hold, and yet I long for the way things were.

I was most recently thinking about this while driving up the hill towards my first class this week. Rain was beating against the windshield, the road was wet, shining, and free of the usual chaos that morning traffic usually brings. To top it all off, the beautiful song I was listening to climaxed just as I was coming up over the ridge. It seemed like a perfect moment. And yet, I thought humorously, not perfect. After all, if it were a perfect moment, I'd be having a good hair day, my lips wouldn't be chapped, that acne protesting my adulthood loudly from on top of my nose would not be there, and I'd probably have a dark-skinned, breathtakingly handsome boyfriend sitting in the seat next to me singing harmony to the song in a perfect tenor voice.

The point is, God may have created perfect, but thanks to the pride of our predescesors, not to mention our own pride, perfect does not exist in anything temporal. Actually, as far as I can see, there are only three perfect things in existance today: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

We long for perfection. We want the perfect house, the perfect man, and the perfect "me". We want to be able to always say the right things, think the right things, and keep ourselves from falling into sin. Life is a constant battle between our desire for perfection, and its impossibility.

Of course, I don't have the answers. I don't know how it is possible to live with contentment in an imperfect world. But I think it would be easier if we would stop searching for perfection in the world, and start seeking it in Christ. Eventually He will renew the world and we can end our groaning. Until then, groan we must, but with the knowledge that God is perfect, that he is purposeful in perfecting, and that his purpose is perfect.

So blessed to have a Lord and King who can be trusted.