Imperfection

I received the proofs from the printer on Friday. They had spotted one page inside where the text went a bit out of the margin. Then I spotted a typo on the back cover where I had typed "quirkly" instead of "quirky." For some reason, knowing about these two mistakes made me feel kinda nauseous. Part of it was that I had hoped everything was perfect...but I oughta know better. Another part was that it struck me that this book is actually about to go on the press and it will be too late to change anything. Did I say anything wrong? Was I too irreverent somewhere? Well, that ship has sailed now, I guess. It's a crisis in confidence that I experience fairly often, especially every time I get the chance to preach on Sunday. I start out excited about my ideas for the message. But about Thursday or Friday, I start thinking: "I got nothing here! What was I thinking? This is gonna be awful." I have to remind myself to trust my first impressions and to let God handle the rest.
So I made the two corrections to the book proofs and sent them off on Tuesday. No turning back now. In just a few weeks I'll be receiving boxes full of Shiny Spots in the Rust. It's still scary.