“. . .a limit to all perfection. . .”

I’d been feeling more tired and weaker than my usual; in fact, in describing my sense of it to my husband, I likened it to the months preceding my diagnosis of Addison’s disease, back in 2007. We reckoned, apparently correctly, the root of the trouble. “It’s your hormones, Stupid!” Again? After 18 years. . . this was not a good thing.

Without going into detail, I will say the lesson has been instructive: casualties inhere in all quests for perfection.

Part of the trouble is false memory. We think we were perfect at the age we’re trying to return to, but we were not perfect. We were flawed—and worse, designed to play out the universal scheme of entropy. Pharmacology, with all its promises, can’t perfect us decades later, either. Tough.

I’d never had anything but perfect lab tests before in this particular area of my health. But then, I’d never volunteered for this particular test because something was clearly wrong before, either. Suddenly imperfection has hit the routine screen. Nothing urgent, or even sinister, but something materially pre-sinister. And a change in said pharmacology might likely belay any progress of the pre-sinister, or possibly even make it go away entirely.

As I was cleaning a room in our house this morning, I looked up at the framed text of the Heidelberg Catechism, Question 1 on the wall. I gave quiet thanks for being surrounded by reassurances.

I have seen a limit to all perfection; Thy commandment is exceedingly broad.—Ps. 119:96 (NASB 1977)

I’m comported to rebel against the times and seasons of my life that God has faithfully established. My way, at no cost, would be so much better. That’s why I have a Savior. And the husband He gave me.