Last month our church hosted a women’s night featuring author Kristin Ritzau who wrote the wonderfully heart changing book A Beautiful Mess: The Perfectionist’s Journey Through Self Care. My dear friend Tara approached me and asked if I would be interested in heading up the decorations for the event! Of course I jumped at the chance to use my craftiness to serve others and Christ! Since Kristin shares all about the exhaustion we women face as we daily struggle for perfection and the importance of being ok with the mess, we decided to create centerpieces to display that. Lucky for me, my mother is awesome and amazing and has a home filled with nic-nac treasures and was willing to help, we didn’t have to spend any money to decorate 16 tables! Impressive right!?! Here are a few of the pictures….
All the beautiful flowers came from my mom’s garden and it was my dad’s ingenious idea to fill the mason jars with my brother’s old marble collection for a little color! Here is our practice table shot!
The room looked great, and it was a beautiful mess!
If you have not heard of Kristin’s book, and are tired of continually feeling like you are falling short of the world’s idea of air-brushed perfection, then I STRONGLY suggest you pick your self up a copy! She also has a wonderful blog!
I had just finished reading the book right before the event, and it was like it was written just for me. What was really fun, and God does have a sense of humor, is that the entire time I was making the centerpieces, I kept trying to make it “perfect, ” at least what I thought that was. It was a never ending battle with myself to let it go and enjoy the creation instead of continually tweeking and fixing! That week was definitely a time of growth for me!
A Beautiful Mess: A Perfectionist’s Journey Through Self-care
Here is a little snippet from the book jacket:
In a society obsessed with perfection, it is not surprising that so many women — especially Christian women — are breaking beneath the burden of expectation. With airbrushed models and “reality TV” blaring in stereo sound, it’s no wonder women are abusing themselves, literally, to maintain the perception of perfection.
If you are exhausted from trying to keep it all together or feel anxious at the thought of someone “finding you out” and calling you a fraud; if you are at the breaking point from meeting the demands of everyone else and always putting yourself last or simply beating yourself up because of your imperfections — this book was written for you.