Challenges....

We were given a challenge at church today. Instead of coming up with a New Year's Resolution, come up with a word that defines how you want to work on aspects of your life. Some people said "patience," others said "faith," another was "perseverance." The one that struck me was "courage." Courage to challenge yourself to go outside of your own comfort zone and face situations that would normally cause you to run and hide. I think that is the word that I may use as well. I may come up with another word as time goes on but for right now, I think that courage is appropriate.

Another challenge is one that I want to pose to others (and to myself). The challenge being the strive for "perfection." In my opinion, the expectation of perfection is a dangerous thing. Because, then inevitably, when you fall below perfection, people wonder about your performance and can even question you as an individual. Thus, you begin to question other areas of your life as well. I think, striving to be the "best you that you can" is better in the long run than trying to obtain perfection.

Maybe that's one of the things that caused problems between me and my wasband. I thought I had the perfect husband. Yes, there were times that I doubted that perfection, but for the most part, I thought my husband was pretty perfect. Along with everything else, I just expected too much from him and he couldn't do it anymore. Some things have been coming up at work that are causing me to question multiple aspects of my life, therefore, I am once again questioning the reason why the wasband left in the first place.

In my head, I know that the reason why things fell apart between the two was us was because of things that both of us did (or didn't do). However, at times like this, I begin to examine all of the things that I did that may have pushed him away (and am not necessarily focused on the things that he did as well). There are times where I'm only able to focus on what I did/didn't do that caused him to leave our marriage. I think part of that comes from that's all I can focus on. He told me (more than once) that everything I needed to know about why he left me was in the letter he left and when I questioned that (and even gave him a list of questions I had), he still didn't give me any sort of answers or resolve.

Maybe, for whatever reason, I'm not meant to know why he left. That may be one of the challenges that I need to face and overcome along my quest. Having that knowledge doesn't make things any easier, but it's a step in that direction. One foot in front of the other is the only was to make progress (even if it feels as if you're going backwards, it's still motion, and that 's better than standing still).