A Dragon

Recently I have had a heart full of petty complaining


A jaw full of pent-up frustrations

A throat full of raw sighings

A stomach full of harbored expectations

That’s what happens when we get weary and we forget to pray.

When we forget God is near.

And this morning he and I had a long talk. I did most of the listening.

At the end of the conversation I realized I had a problem. Certainly something I have aspired to. Certainly something I am never going to attain. I am a little too obsessed with perfection.

The wrong kind.

The wrong kind of perfection leads to constant defeat and an utter sense of failure. The wrong kind fills us with false and dashed hope. The wrong kind makes us expect what can’t be given. The wrong kind scrapes the inner lining of our heart until it’s raw and we lash out from the pain.


I have been striving for a perfection that just simply doesn’t exist. Demanding from myself what I just can’t produce. I just don't have the capacity to do this. I keep too many tally marks of my wrongs, mistakes and failures. And I multiply them. They become monstrous things--dragons. And this dragon of perfection breathes out fire and blisters my skin and scorches my eyebrows and hair. And when I cry the salt burns the raw places.

And this morning I was weary from struggling and I fell into my Father’s great big arms and wept. And wept some more.
He just held me there.

And he rubbed his salve on my blisters.