Presence Over Perfection {rambling reflections}

These past twelve months I've been learning a lesson (and learning and learning and learning): It's called 'Meaghan didn't really think she was a perfectionist but actually she really is'. For a long time I put the idea of perfectionism in a box. It was something that could freeze a person or make getting 'small' tasks done impossible or getting the urge to redo someone else's work because it wasn't up to snuff. I *knew* of people who were frozen by this kind-of perfectionism, and no way was it me. I did things: I learned cello, guitar, piano, sketching, gardening mostly by just doing it. Sure, sometimes I'd be disappointed with the results, but I'd keep trying and trying. No, it wasn't the small things that made me stumble over this perfectionism.

My perfectionism shows up most in the standards I set for myself and the difficulty I have giving myself grace when I fall flat on my face. Perfectionism is a form of anxiety. It's a voice inside of your head condemning you quicker than a speeding bullet, and it lies. A LOT. That voice tells you your mess-up was of EPIC proportions when it was only a stumble or just a 'you have a lot of willpower, but your body is TIIIIRRREEED'. There's not a whole lot of ground being human and being perfect share in common (How 'bout none?), but sometimes we listen to perfectionism and that fear more intensely than we do the Holy Spirit. Oopsy. Here we are condemning ourselves over our lack of perfection while Jesus is up in Heaven interceding on our behalf when Satan condemns us. And condemnation separates which really doesn't help us (*will now put herself back on track*).

The past year has been a fight for me. There's been a lot going on internally. A lot of wrestling with myself. Wrestling between how I feel and what I know and then my flawed thinking patterns. My emotions have been all over the place, and when you feel like an extremely messy person (who is well aware that some of her thoughts are illogical but for the life of her can't get the emotions part to just STOP), you don't really feel like showing up in other people's lives. It's a pride thing. It's a fear thing. It's a 'I've overthought this X10, and now I will be the martyr and save other people from having to put up with me because if I can't deal with myself, how can I expect other people?' thing. It's kind-of stupid because 'oh no! People will now know I'm imperfect', but the whole dismissing feelings doesn't work great.

Because of some not-so-fun experiences in the friendship/people department growing up, my perfectionism appears here a lot. There's this thought that because some friendship didn't work out, it was directly correlated with something I did. I said the wrong thing here. I overshared. Maybe I tried too hard. Maybe I wasn't open enough. Maybe...maybe...That tunnel of thought is long and dark and filled with many under-stretched or over-stretched thoughts. Essentially I created the theory that if I made a mistake or did something stupid once, it could ruin a relationship. There was no room for grace, for the trust that people would give me open communication, for me if I was in a funky mood or was complaining too much or felt too unsure. No safe place. So...Meaghan is now shut for business.

But everyone is under construction, and we go through periods where the very walls of our heart are torn down for renovation, and it feels pretty naked in this place. I don't like it because I don't like sometimes how I feel about myself or how I feel about the whiplash of emotions or fall-out of logic so why would anyone else?  Why would I show this side of myself -- the side that can't even fake perfectionism -- to anyone else? Why would I lean-- how could I lean on their compassion? According to my relationship theory, it's suicide, and yet, I can't walk this path alone. So what are you supposed to do?

I get out of my circular circus of crazy thoughts, and I remember something: those who love you don't need your performances or your pretend perfection. Your presence is most important. Your so-called 'perfection' isn't what they see, anyway. You are you are you even if you are more Eeyore or Piglet than Pooh today, and sometimes you need that presence to remind you who you are when the whiplash of emotions leave you feeling lost or numb. There is laughter and fellowship and bright moments even when under construction, and presence without perfection creates the strongest connection.

Something a Bit Rusty Like Hope {rambling reflections}

Love is a verb -- it's something we've been told many times and are consistently reminded of.  There are songs about it (*inserts 'Luv is a verb' by DC Talk*).  People teach about it. When you think of all the important relationships in your life, it comes down to 'choosing to love', and not just that, but also to do other actions propelled by this choice to love.

But you know that verse in the Bible about Hope, Faith, and Love? Because love is the greatest, often the other two words slip through the cracks. Hope more so than Faith, and yet, they are all verbs. They are all words of action.

Hope is a verb. I hadn't realized that until recently when I was reading a post on the To Write Love on Her Arms blog. This past twelve months, I've been disappointed, almost ashamed, by the lack of hope I felt. As a Christian, I should have all the hope in the world and my hope should be anchored on something untouchable by life, but I didn't feel hope. So what did that mean? Had I let my hope go?

And yet this blog post I read gave me a different image of hope. The author painted hope as something you do. You show up to life each morning, regardless of how you feel, regardless of the many times you ask yourself 'why', and you do the next thing and the next thing after that. Maybe like love, hope has little to do with how you feel and more to do with your actions.

Hope is more of a trust, and our trust is placed in God -- That He will make our attempts enough, that He will use even our most tired of actions to mean something, that tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrrow will bring light and life and another spring. Hope is getting up every morning and still believing that someday, eventually, you'll want to try again and you'll have a hope you can hold in your disbelieving hands.

Hope, like Love, is not always dressed with perfection. It's a grittier thing, a stubborn thing. Maybe the 'feeling' is a bird with many feathers, but the real thing is time-resistant, two steadfast boots not about to budge, hands rubbed raw as they hang onto the end of the rope, taking care of yourself even when you ask, 'But why? What's the point?'

       We're imperfect humans in an imperfect world, and any hope less than the hope that involves clinging wouldn't be sufficient. So we will get up. We will lace up those boots, and we will try and try and try, and when hope in tomorrow and our resilience and those around us falters, our hope is 'built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness'.

Perfection & Compassion

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,

and wisdom to know the difference.

Oh dear heart, I see you and I feel your exhaustion. I feel the weight of a burden too heavy you've been carrying on your shoulders and how it keeps forcing you to your knees. You keep pushing and pushing and pushing. I know because I do the same, and it seems the only way I learn this lesson of grace and compassion is on my knees, stripped of the moorings I've used in my life, with a keen awareness of my inadequacy.

We keep chasing after a perfection we think is possible to achieve without God's grace and righteousness, but it is only an illusion, a hole in the floor we fall into time after time. This hole is a suffocating place to pull ourselves out of. In this desolation, we have no hope but to cast ourselves on God's mercy and compassion, as if surrender is a last resort when it should have always been our first hope.

Why is it so hard for some of us to learn compassion for ourselves? Maybe we're molded by expectations set too high by those older than us. Maybe our environment, circumstances, or a fear of failure and disappointment formed us. If we do all things well, then we won't have to rely on this thing-- this compassion, this grace -- that doesn't make sense, that has no justice in it.

Maybe we'll never know the cause of this cruelty toward self, but it's there deep inside of us, worked into our very core -- the idea we are somehow unworthy of compassion from others, and especially from ourselves to ourselves. Oh, we would bleed from our very cores for others to know compassion and grace. We would fight for others to know rest, to know how it is to lay aside their load of expectations, their drive to do better, always to do better. What have we done so unforgivable that others are deserving of this grace but we are not?

Why can't we grasp onto the compassion God has extended and extends to us? If we cannot learn to accept God's compassion, then we will never be able to accept compassion from others or our own selves. This cycle will repeat endlessly.

We are torn equally between mind and heart. Logic and feelings. We have both, so what is missing? We raise high standards, impossible standards and become frustrated when we can never reach them. We fight against every aspect of being human with all our strength. Our wheels spin until we're burned out, and how do you come back from being burned out? How do you learn compassion for self and remember God's voice isn't the same as the condemning voice constantly on inside of your head?

We latch onto truth and forfeit grace in exchange as if the two could not exist together. Randy Alcorn writes, "People thirst for the real Jesus. Nothing less can satisfy. Grace and truth are His fingerprints. We show people Jesus only when we show them grace and truth. Anything less than both is neither."

Anything less than both is neither. 

There is no hope in truth and subsequent condemnation (I have fallen short and sinned, and now I am separated from God). There is only hope in compassion (I have sinned, and I sin, but God knows my frame is only dust. He knows. He knows. Beyond this, 'He who believes in Him is not condemned' - John 3:18a. We are not condemned. In fact, Jesus is in Heaven now as our great intercessor. As we condemn ourselves again and again, He intercedes.).

Yet, we believe so strongly in our pursuit of perfection that the pieces of scripture we let penetrate our mind show our pursuit to be right. The words condemn us because we are nowhere near where we are called to be. After all, perfect love casts out fear, and the very pursuit of perfection is driven by fear. 'Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is', and if we are not perfect or striving toward perfection with all our strength, then are we even trying?

We seem to forget how lopsided this arrangement of eternal life is in the first place. If we don't grasp a small inkling of how unimaginably absurd it is that we should have this gift, then we'll never know of God's heart. We'll never believe grace and compassion in all their wonderful colors.

Oh, if only we could take to heart the things we are shown of God's mercy, grace, and compassion. "For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted [persistent pain or distress, great suffering]; Nor has He hidden His face from him; but when he cried to Him, He heard." (Psalm 22: 24). God does not despise us, the poor and striving. He delivers the needy (Psalm 72: 12-14). We are the needy. Their blood is precious in His sight (Psalm 72:12-14). Our blood is precious in His sight. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds (Psalm 147: 3, 10). He takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy (psalm 147: 11).

What He doesn't take pleasure in is the legs of men. He has no pleasure in our own strength (Psalm 147: 3), and yet, we do use our own strength. We fight for perfection almost entirely with our own strength, and we forget we are human. God never forgets our frame of dust, but we do. We forget our goodness is nothing apart from Him (Psalm 16:2) and that it is God who arms us with strength and makes our way perfect (Psalm 18:32).

So what do we do? How can we rest on this grace and in this compassion? We must grasp hold of the fact God's perfection is enough. It is not simple or something we will learn in a day. Maybe it will take a lifetime. A lifetime of accepting humbling compassion and grace from others and from God and in time, letting ourselves rest. We will fail and fall short, but we must get up and try again. We need to remember to look past our rules, regulations, and goals to God's heart because there is an easier way than the one we've chosen.

Our God is the God who said: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30). Dear heart, let us run to Jesus with all our tiredness from trying so hard and heavy burdens of unrealistic expectations for ourselves and learn from Him. This is the only way to start.

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This is something I've been struggling with a lot lately - compassion and perfection. Sometimes perfection has a way of sneaking into our thinking where we don't even realize how much we're influenced by it. I hope you felt love, compassion, and understanding as you read this. Do you struggle with perfectionism? What is something you do to offset that drive?  Happy Thanksgiving!