The truth hurts doesn't it? Sometimes there is just no laughter to go with it. It just hurts. You wanna know the truth? I'm human. That's a newsflash, huh? I'm assuming if you've read my blog at all you are very aware that in the Olympics of perfection, I didn't qualify. And if too much disclosure were an event I could probably win the gold. I promise that any time I share very personal, painful to hear things that they have been painful for me to share and it is only because the Spirit has nudged (or forced) me to. This is one of those times.
A few days ago I got a comment on my blog by a person I love dearly and think is a doll. She left one of the sweetest comments I've ever gotten. I was quickly swelling with pride and then I started to quiver with insecurity. She said, "We see you as perfect". I don't know who she meant by "we", but she herself lives many states away so I know that her vision is clouded by a few state lines. :) Her comment made me feel so special, but I went into a panic attack when I read the "P" word. Perfect. *Deep sigh*.
If you wonder how I can possibly stay so humble, when I told Josh about the comment he LAUGHED OUT LOUD! Seriously. The reason I even bring it up is because it almost feels like a ghost from my past. Believe me, right now I would rather be complaining about packing with a 2 year old in the house, writing 500 sappy letters to people I love in Montrose, or giving you some more songs to get stuck in your head. But, I've been feeling like God wanted me to stop in the midst of the moving chaos and share something with you. He wanted me to share that I'm not perfect. I was pretty sure we had covered that, but He seemed to want me to dwell on that a little bit.
When I say that the "P" word is a ghost from my past what I mean is that I spent many years in bondage to the desire for perfection. I've tried to figure out why. Still haven't. I thought it was just my personality, but honestly since God has worked in my heart on the whole perfectionism thing I'm not so sure about that. These days I'm usually just trying to achieve mediocre. I always thought of perfectionist as the people who had immaculate homes and cars and were always perfectly dressed without a hair out of place. THAT IS SO NOT ME! But I learned that my perfectionism was more of an inner thing that drove me to want to think, say, and do everything "right". When I was 13 I went through my rebellious phase and it was also that year that I returned to God. I became convinced that for people to believe that I made things right with God that I had to be, you guessed it, perfect. I thought no one would believe that I had changed if made any mistake at all. I thought God's reputation would be totally ruined if someone saw me be anything but Miss Christianity.
I really wasn't trying to be insincere or fake. I really fell in love with Jesus and wanted more than anything to please Him. My problem was that somehow I decided that pleasing Him meant that I should always please EVERYBODY else. Again, it was all me. I put the pressure on myself. I set my standards unbelievably high. Apparently I led people to think I was something I wasn't....perfect.
I wasn't going to say anything about that comment, even though I felt like I should. Then I got this e-mail from a high school friend:
"If anything I only regret to holding you during those times to a standard that no one including myself could attain and thus at times feeling that you failed my expectations at being perfect"
He went on to give an example of a time he saw me snap at my sister and couldn't believe I would do such a thing. Ow. I won't lie, it hurt. It hurt that I had messed up. It really hurt that not only had someone witnessed it, but REMEMBERED it 13 years later. It hurt the most that I was reminded that I'm not and never have been...perfect. But the thing is, it only hurt for a second. And then, I felt relieved. Relieved that God truly has done such a work in my life at setting me free from the "P" word. Let me tell you about it.
I've shared that I struggled with depression and it was very rooted in my desire for perfection. Did you know that life is hard? Well, it is. Turns out the older I got the less I knew. The more I tried to be perfect the less perfect I was. I experienced some tough times that left me feeling very vulnerable and it was during that time that my Dad spoke some of the most freeing words I'd ever heard. He said, "It is not your job to make everybody happy." Wow. Do you know that at the age of 17 that was news to me? I always thought it was my job to make everybody happy. The problem with realizing that it's not your job to make people happy is that well, it makes people unhappy. For a chronic people pleaser like myself it became torture to make decisions and do things that didn't make everybody happy.
It was during my depression that I developed a new kind of relationship with my Jesus. I don't really want to go into the details of my depression, but I'll just tell you it got ugly. My marriage survived because my husband is a saint. And he was working between 60-80 hours a week and didn't have to be around me much. I always thought I would be such an awesome mom, but I wasn't. I was the exact opposite of an awesome mom. I would occassionally have good days, but Josh recently told me that he could always tell when I was depressed by looking in my eyes. I knew what he meant. I used to look at myself in the mirror and feel like I didn't know who I was looking at. What does all of this have to do with the perfection thing? I couldn't even pretend to be perfect. I said hateful things. I gave looks that probably hurt more than the words. There were many times I questioned if I was really a Christian.
It was during those dark, lonely, hopeless days that I discovered a new hope. I know now that Jesus never left me but I surely tried to run away from Him. He never let go. He met me, laying in the fetal position on the floor and said, "This is who you are, but I know who you can be." I learned about GRACE and that a relationship with Him is a GIFT and not anything I could ever earn even if I was the president of the Christian club. :) It didn't have a thing in the world to do with how great Emily is and everything to do with how great He is! It wasn't about me. Never had been, never will be. I'm just a very imperfect child trying to please my Daddy. I want to be who He wants me to be, but He always loves me right where I am.
My very favorite verse has always been Romans 5:8 which says, "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this, while we were still sinners Christ died for us." And the verse that God used to teach me to let go of that people pleasing? (Or to work on it...) "For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bonservant of Christ." Galatians 1:10 I've learned that I am a sinner saved by grace called to serve God and not men. And that was an important lesson because many things God asks us to do are NOT popular with anybody, much less everybody.
In my never ending people pleasing quest (see, still very much working on it) I pray that this is taken the way it is meant to be. It means so much to me that people think highly of me and consider me an example. It blows my mind, but still it is nice. But at the same time it breaks my heart a million times over to think of how imperfect I am and that it woud be a disappointment. I can assure you if you have put me on a pedastal I will fall off quicker than you could imagine. But if you want a friend to join you on the journey of following Jesus I am all over that! We can forget about the "P" word and just focus on the One who is perfect!
"For the law appoints as high priest men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever."
Hebrews 7:28
2 comments:
At church my pastor read this speech from Martin Luther King Jr. It reminds me of you and maybe why so many people think you are perfect.
And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
You are the best Emily God made you to be. And you will only get better.
Ah yes, perfection is a stout enemy, not to be taken on in human flesh! Fortunately, I don't have that problem. My bigger problem seems to be my insecurities. But the perfection and insecurity are really just the two polar opposite sides of the same coin - pride. And therein we find the root of all sin. Self, self, self.
Loved the post. Bless your sweet heart!
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