"I can't do this!" I wailed into the phone.

Christina had called as I was frosting a chocolate layer cake I'd promised to make for my friend Lisa's party. Well, I was trying to frost the cake. In fact, I'd been trying for at least 30 minutes, and nothing was going right.

At least that's how it felt. I'd measured carefully to make sure the cake's layers baked evenly, but my cake was lopsided. No amount of frosting could disguise it. And speaking of frosting, I was sure I'd followed my favorite recipe perfectly. But somehow, it was too thick and wouldn't spread the way I thought it should.

So I sat at the kitchen table, sliding the layers around a bit to make it look more even. I heated my metal spatula and tried to smooth out the icing. I slowly spun the cake on my decorating turntable, doing everything I could to make it look better. But honestly, I think all of my working and reworking was just making my cake look worse.

And this was the second cake I'd baked for this party that day. A few hours earlier, I'd put a cake in the oven, thinking I'd have plenty of time to cool and frost it. A few minutes later, I realized I'd forgotten to add oil to the eggs, sugar, chocolate, flour and vanilla. Um, oops. By the time I realized my mistake, the only thing to do was to start over.

To top it all off, I was running late. I was supposed to be on my way to the party, but I hadn't even changed out of my sweats and T-shirt yet. I felt panic rising every time I glanced at the glowing green dial of the microwave clock.

By the time Christina called, I was a flour-covered, frosting-smeared mess.

"This cake is the ugliest cake I've ever made!" I shrieked. "I can't take this to the party! It's awful. Maybe I just shouldn't go!"

"Oh, come on, LaTonya," Christina said. "It can't be that bad."

"You can't see it!" I moaned. "It looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa! It's horrible! I'm such a loser!"

"OK, so maybe it's a little lopsided," she said. "But your cakes always taste good. So why don't you take it anyway? You're probably the only one who'll notice it's less than perfect."

Christina's words helped me feel a little bit better. And as we talked, l loosened my grip on my spatula. I started gently swirling a pattern in the frosting. As I relaxed, I found a way to make the cake look perfectly imperfect. My voice lowered, and, perhaps most significantly of all, I stopped punctuating every sentence with exclamation points.

After a few minutes, I felt sane enough to get dressed and drive to Lisa's party. When I finally made it there, she oohed and aahed over the cake as she got ready to slice it and serve it to her guests.

"Wow, this is really pretty," Lisa said, showing the cake to them. "Look at all of these swirls LaTonya made."

I couldn't believe it. Just an hour earlier, I'd been in serious meltdown mode. I couldn't live up to my expectations for myself, and I'd called myself a loser. I almost missed a great party. It took the reasonable words of my friends to make me OK with my imperfections—and to realize that I was probably the only person who was really aware of them.

Maybe you're like me—a perfectionist. My younger brother likes to say that I'm "wound really tight." Because of that, it's hard for me to accept my imperfections. I can think of everything that's wrong with me, or everything that I don't do well, and those things bother me. A lot. So I struggle not to become paralyzed with guilt, regret and shame, even over stuff like cake. And I sometimes come close to missing really good parties.

But I'm learning, very, very slowly, how to accept grace. Like God's grace, which offers forgiveness for my sins and challenges me to grow beyond them. And grace from my friends, who remind me that I'm a teensy bit nutty and should probably dial it down a notch. And because of God and my friends, I am learning to give grace to myself, and to others.

As I'm learning, I've started to look around for signs of God's grace in my life, working in my heart. When I do that, I can see it all around me. Suddenly, God's gracious hand is in the patience I have for a friend who's not at her best. It's in a discovery that draws me out of sadness or pain, just in time. It's in the courage to try something new, even if I won't do it well the first time. It's an unexpected joy that warms and sustains me.

It's even in slices of gooey, slightly lopsided chocolate layer cake.

Learning to listen,
LaTonya

P.S. How do you experience grace in your life? E-mail me about it at iyfconnection@igniteyourfaith.com, and maybe I'll run your response in a future column.

Read more from 'Ignite Your Faith Connection'

				Try an Issue of Ignite Your Faith Free! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders. If you decide you want to keep Ignite Your Faith coming, honor your invoice for just $19.95 and receive eight more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Give Ignite Your Faith as a gift Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!

FREE Newsletters Subscribe to the Ignite Your Faith Connection Newsletter: Subscribe to the Christian College Guide Newsletter:    RSS Feed   RSS Help