Text Box: Interfaith Celebration Gathering Sunday, April 22, 2001 Interfaith Celebration Gathering Service Service agenda: Opening Prayer Readings Message OPENING PRAYER: Dear Mother, Father, Great Spirit, God, please hear my prayer. Take my life and let me be ever closer, God, to Thee. Take my heart, let it not stray. Make me faithful day to day. Work your miracles in me; help my wondering eyes to see. Take my soul and make it Thine—let it with Your love entwine. I ask this knowing that all I need do is ask and it is granted. AMEN READINGS: It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others. Joseph Addison The only nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others. Doug Larson Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person. Dr David M Burns MESSAGE: Just Right The big one is too large, the small one is too little. The medium one is just right, but I cannot get it. Does this seem like the story of your life? If so, then you have plenty of company. Most of us apply high standards to things that we want or need. Whether we are searching for a house, a car, or a mate, we have a list of wishes and wants. We seek perfection and constantly find imperfection. One by one, houses, cars, and people get crossed off our list because they do not meet all our expectations. This one was too big, that one was too small. Knowing what we want and need in a home, a car, or a relationship is important. Where we get off track, however, is in expecting the person, car, or house to fit all our needs, and discarding them when they fail to meet those needs. There is no perfection in this realm. When we expect every one of our standards to be met, we will inevitably be disappointed. This disappointment arises in part because we are trying desperately to control our lives. Interestingly enough, we are not the best ones to do that. God does a much better job of running things than any one of us ever will. But, when we exert such control on our lives that we feel each and every one of our expectations must be met in order for us to be happy and/or healthy, we leave no room for God to operate in our lives. We leave no ‘Angel Spaces’ where our guardian angels can fly in and change things or offer us an alternative viewpoint. For example, email is a wonderful communications tool. It has made talking about our feelings so much easier because we can share them and then have time to prepare for the other person’s response. As a result, people seem to feel much freer to say some rather startling things with impunity. Have you ever written and sent one of those emails that you wished (on re-reading) you had not sent? I have noticed that when I am running my life, those types of emails always get delivered. But, when I have turned my life over to God to run, often my guardian angel steps in and redirects my inappropriate email into some cosmic black hole. This happened for me just this past week. Control issues can get us into all sorts of problems in our lives. They can also keep us from experiencing the joy of miracles in our lives. There is no room for miracles in a ‘controlled’ life. If you have had trouble turning over control of your life to God, then perhaps you need to know that control is really an illusion. Control is what we use to convince ourselves we are in charge of other people and things over which we exert (at best) only limited influence. Our need to control things arises when we live in fear. Fear is not faith, and it is faith that allows us to turn our lives over to God. When God is in charge of our lives, while the big one may be too large, and the small one too little, God can make either of them workable. When we have faith, forgo fear, and relinquish control, we will find that whatever we get is ‘just right.’ May God add a blessing to these humble words. AMEN © 2001 Rev. S. Suzanne Fisher