Once, in an effort to help me understand myself better, my mother gave me a book on birth order. It wasn't called the curse of the firstborn...but it might as well have been. ;) Within, I discovered a fabulous label for myself: the frustrated perfectionist. We FP's like doing things perfectly, but recognizing the sheer impossibility, we often give up without even trying. I've used that label as an excuse for my messy room <house, car...> for over a decade. :p

However, we can all grow and stretch, right? I'm visiting family on Camano Island this week and every time I'm confronted by the majesty of the view out their window, unfailingly I find myself wishing I were a painter. I probably ought to mention before continuing that my artistic abilities were inherited from my maternal grandmother, who freely admits that every animal she creates looks exactly alike, save the elephant recognizable by his long trunk alone. Out of self-preservation I've figured out how to draw a house and can identically reproduce it whenever I'm asked to draw something <usually by a small child sketching something better than me in about 30 seconds>.

So...this morning I set aside my FP tendencies, knowing good and well my efforts would be in vain, and tromped outside to sketch a water fountain in the rose garden. The result was as I'd imagined -- my aunt thought the fountain was an owl, grandma thought it might be a frog -- but what a lovely half hour I passed sitting with the sound of bubbling water swirling around me, the wind blowing through the trees and birds chirping.

My abject failure as an artist reminded me of last week's sermon in Romans -- I may not be the next Monet, but Paul assures me that my gifts and talents are a unique and necessary part of the body of Christ. Some paint pictures of such beauty you want to cry, others sing in a way that gives you chills <another gift I do not possess>. I could go on and on, but it's comforting to know that the original Artist has uniquely gifted each one of us for the particular path He's selected. What'll be fun is when we get to see the tapestry He's weaving from the other side. Maybe I'll even get to draw something recognizable up there.