The one thing you need to stop believing about yourself
Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
2
Corinthians 12:9 (NLT)
One of my
clearest childhood memories involves my desire to be perfect.
I’m about 7 or 8
and I'm sitting on the carpet in my speech therapists office. And I’m crying.
Sobbing, the kind that you can’t catch your breath for, the kind of tears that
you cry when you’ve lost something of great worth.
The tears were
all because I kept doing a task wrong. I had to read a list of questions and
then choose a tile with the corresponding picture. Once they were all placed on
a grid I could flip the grid over, and if I was correct there would be a
picture on the other side. I had been doing this for a couple of sessions but
still could not get a complete picture to appear on the other side.
I was distraught
because I failed at this task. Not just that task but reading and writing in
general. I came to be in the speech therapists office because my teacher
couldn’t understand a thing I wrote. My brain scrambled up the vowels. The sounds
I heard, and the vowels I wrote or spoke, had no correlation.
That day in the
speech therapists office the weight of imperfection made me feel like life
wasn’t worth living. The tears fell. Adele, the speech therapist, kept asking
me what was wrong. I stammered, “I’m not perfect.”
Adele spoke
softly to me. I don’t remember much of what she said but I do remember her
telling me that, no one is perfect and if we’d been perfect Jesus wouldn’t have
had to die so we could be with him forever. I remember that this soothed me.
I’m retelling
this story now because it’s one of the reasons I’m embracing “well” this year.
I’m learning that “well” and “perfect” aren’t the same thing. “Well” refers to
doing something healthily – with balance – where as “perfect” leaves no room
for my humanity.
In so many ways I’m still the little girl who believes
I have to be perfect to be accepted.
I’m still buckling under the weight of every one
else’s expectations.
I’m still terrified that who I am isn’t enough.
I don’t know,
maybe I'm the only one that has believes perfection equals acceptance however
I’ve got a feeling that there are a lot of us walking around needing to give
ourselves more grace (can I get a “Me
too” in the comments?).
As I was thinking
about writing this blog I was looking for a bible verse. I couldn’t find it, so
I googled, “Bible Verse perfect”.
2 seconds later
Google returned these results:
21 Bible verses about being a perfect
Christian
Be perfect – Clarified King James
Version
Ugh! Do you feel it just reading those? The weight to
be something you’re not. The feeling that you’ll never measure up.
When I look at scripture I see a lot of bible verses that speak to God being the strength in our weakness, the grace we need when we make mistakes, the one who is present when our knees knock together and our mouths go dry, the carrier of our burdens when they grow to heavy. That doesn’t sound a lot like the actions of God who expects perfection from his people.
Like Adele told my seven year-old self, Jesus died because we weren't perfect.
It's worth remembering that Jesus accepted us in our imperfections. Jesus chose to die for us when we were imperfect.
I know these
kinds of beliefs are easier to talk about then to stop believing so here are 3
actions I’m taking to break this belief:
1. Naming it
I’ve learnt in
life that it’s hard to stop believing anything if I am not first willing to
admit that I believe it. That’s part of what this blog is about. I’m breaking
up with the need to perfect. And I’m doing it in public. That’s part of the
reason that you’re reading this on a website that is half-finished. In the past
I would never have let you see something that wasn’t perfect or finished but if
I’m going to change a lot I need to start with small things.
2. Practicing helpful statements
If you’re a
perfectionist this won’t come as a surprise to you but perfectionism comes with
the nasty habit of being hyper self-critical. The best way to break that habit
is practice making realistic helpful statements when I think critically. I’m
using a lot of bible verses here. Things like, “Making a mistake doesn’t mean
I’m failure, God’s
grace is enough for me in this”.
3. Having grace for myself
And then I’m not
being too hard on myself when I slip back into perfectionist tendencies. A
tweet I read last week by Allison Fallon really helped me in this area:
“Have grace for yourself.
Forgive yourself for buying into the belief
that you had to be perfect.”
I know it isn’t
easy - I’ve been struggling with this belief since I was a 7 year-old – and I
sure haven’t got the hang of it yet, so I’d love to hear from any of you who
have broken this belief that perfection is needed for acceptance.
Prayer: Lord, show me daily that your grace is more
than enough for every fault, every mistake and every imperfection. Help me to
forgive myself as you have forgiven me. Amen.
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