Perfect, Shmerfect

Graphic by Josh Ulmer

Not too long ago, I discovered an amazing phenomenon. I learned that I can’t be perfect in everything. Okay, I’ll admit that it’s not really a shocker, but it sort of is to me. Growing up, I always had to be the best, and if I wasn’t, I considered myself a failure. I had to be perfect. Sooner or later the realization hit, though, and I had to admit that no one on earth can be perfect. That’s God’s job.

In Philippians 3, Paul talks of the life for which a Christian should strive, but quickly admits that not even he has it down pat. “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

In the dictionary in the back of my Bible, the meaning of “perfect” in that verse includes “reaching a goal.” What is the goal of a Christian life? Is it the goal of perfection or the goal to be like Jesus? Since Jesus is perfect, and we want to be like Jesus, it sounds like the same thing....

Memory Lapse

There are just two things about my summer that I didn’t like – the seven-hour flight to Anchorage and the half-hour flight to Kenai.

Most flights from Anchorage to Kenai seat less than twenty people. Our plane held ten people, including the pilot. And before we got on, we had to tell them how much we weighed! If you’ve never been on a little plane before, let me inform you of the difference between that and a 747 aircraft. The flight on a 747 is relatively smooth, with bathrooms, air vents, personal lights, jet engines, and several pilots. Smaller planes do not have bathrooms. Neither do they have lights, or even barf bags. They have sharp, fast propellers. We had only one pilot, and my 12-year-old brother was sitting in the co-pilot seat!

When I flew in that tiny plane, the sun was completely hidden by fog. It was very foggy. We were up in the sky for about twenty-five minutes, and about half that time all I could see out my window was whiteness. Not that I looked out often. I spent...

Facts of Life

Concentration, laughter, sweat — extreme ping pong. Nearly everyday my brother and I play ping pong together. We crash down to the basement, pick up paddles and ping to decide who serves first. A great battle ensues, but I always win. Most of the time.

Lately, however, it’s been a close game. Caleb’s been gaining points faster than me in the beginning of the games, and I have to work extra hard in the end to overtake him. In fact, sometimes I stay behind. You should not have to work to beat your little brother! Even if he’s as tall as you, he should still be easily beatable. It’s just a fact of life.

In my childhood days, I remember playing games with my older sister, Cali, and always losing. That, also, was a fact of life. But now I beat her in a lot of things. I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line I began to win now and then.

I call these things “facts of life.” I’m talking about the things that never fail to happen. The sun comes up in the morning, and the moon...

Temptation Killer Cat

As a die-hard cat person, one of my small joys is randomly coming across a cat or kitten. One day a beautiful Siamese-looking cat wandered into my yard. I caught my breath. Would it let me pet it? Did it live nearby so that it could visit more often? Most importantly, would my self-proclaimed guard cat be in sight range? In the past, if by chance another cat came within Ypsie’s boundaries, there would be a cat fight to raise the dead. Ypsie always wins and has plenty of battle scars to prove it. Even if I try to communicate to him that another cat is harmless, he beats it up. No joke.

So that day the Siamese was outside, I was hoping beyond hope that Ypsie was roaming elsewhere in the neighborhood. Stepping out the door, I perused the area and didn’t see him anywhere. Happily I found out that the unfamiliar cat was as approachable as she was lovely.

I was rubbing her ears when she suddenly tensed up, and I glanced back to find a black ball of fur flying past me, and consequently, toward...

The Stealth Child

My destination loomed tall and cold. I gazed up at it, pinpointing its every defect. The goal: climb to the summit unaided, find out what was really concealed up there, and make it down unnoticed with my information. Stealthily I climbed, basking in my sneakiness and what I was about to uncover. Alas, when I completed my goal of cresting the refrigerator and discovering its contents up top, I failed in actually getting back down. It was only when my mom remembered she hadn’t seen me for awhile that I was found and eventually rescued.

At the time of my story, I was only two years old, which proves that personality is developed at a very young age. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve always been a very, shall we say, independent person. Even excluding the fridge story, there’s bunches of tales of “the stealth child” escaping outdoors in just a diaper to sit in the snow or getting her head stuck in the cat house. I might have been young in those stories, but overall, if all my mistakes were made...