A woman I knew looked at someone else’s cookbook one day and said, “Oh my! I was surprised to see her cookbook so worn. It had food splattered on it, and the pages were getting dog-eared. I have the same one, and it’s still in very good condition.”
And I don’t know if I thought about it at the time, but definitely later, I was reflecting on what she had said, and this was the conclusion I came to.
The first woman’s cookbook was messy. It had food, grease, and water splashed on it.
The second woman was so concerned about keeping her cookbook in good condition that she missed the beauty beneath the mess. She couldn’t see that a cookbook like that really says, “The wear and tear on me shows that I have been well-loved and used – countless hours feeding others and showing care, warmth, and love.”
Sometimes we just need to step back and not look at perfection as much as beauty, because there’s so much beauty without what we think is perfection. And after all, it is possible that the beauty we’re looking at is perfection. It’s just not the perfection we’re expecting.