Perfectionism.

Perfectionism.

The single character trait in which I was most proud. Strangely, I don’t think I ever considered it to be “perfectionist” to think the way I thought. After all, everyone knows perfection is unattainable, and what I was seeking was always possible. In my mind, I wasn’t a perfectionist. I simply strove for excellence in all I did. I wanted the best for myself, and I was going to make sure I got it.

My life hinged on that one principle. Everything I wanted was possible if I just worked hard enough, made the right decisions and followed the right plan.

Until that didn’t work.

My history with Perfectionism

This season of my life was not the first time I had encountered the “dark” side of my perfectionist character.

In 5th grade, I had to make an ecosystem presentation. It had real dirt from outside, some paper cut out animals mixed in, and all sat inside a shoebox from my parents’ closet. That day, I was bouncing in my seat, ready to show everyone the great job I did. Until I saw everyone else’s projects. They had toy animals from hobby lobby, cool fake grass, and their ecosystems were in a fancy plastic box. My excitement turned to dread. I didn’t want anyone to see what I had brought. As I presented, my voice began to crack as tears welled in my eyes. I finished and asked to be excused to the bathroom, teary eyes embarrassingly giving away my reason. I sobbed and felt horrible that entire day.

In highschool, I forgot about a paper that was due. I mistakenly thought it was due on Friday, but came to school on wednesday to find out it was due that afternoon. I cried in front of my sister, terrified that I would fail the entire class.

“This isn’t like me!” I thought.

“I make good grades. I’m a good kid!”

After college, I would have episodes of depression that were so random and painful that I was liable to cry anywhere at anytime. I remember running to the bathroom on multiple occasions during my first nursing job because, out of nowhere, I would be overwhelmed by grief.

Grief caused by what?

At the time I didn’t understand, but now I do. I was grieving the life I thought my decisions would afford me. My life had been spent daydreaming about my future; clinging to a hope that one day, it would all be worth it. Then it wasn’t. And that hurt.

The Breaking Point

It was not until last year that I started to call myself what I was: a perfectionist. And over the last 2 years, God has been working out one thing in me: control.

It has been mortifying.

I know that is a bit of an overexaggeration, but I have honestly never had to face this level of release over my life. Nothing about my life for the past 2 years has been the way I would have planned.

The job God has not released me from.

The distance between me and my fiancé that God won’t permit me to close sooner than His designated time (I’ve tried).

This and so much more has forced me to realize how much I can’t control how my life plays out. At least not if I want to remain in the will of God. And that’s the hard part. I know that I am where I am out of obedience, not out of my own desire. There is so much I would have changed, fixed, and tweaked in my story during the last 2 years. Yet, I didn’t.

What I did, was cry. A lot.

I was angry, disappointed, and more than anything, scared.

Those small moments where my perfectionist nature had come to rear its ugly head had all culminated into this season. God had shown me myself. Not just a glimpse. Rather, for the last two years, he has placed a mirror in my face and would not put it down until I acknowledged the truth in my reflection. Only then, could he let the healing begin.

Healing

I fought. Lord knows I fought. And I do not say that to be funny, nor do I say it with pride. Thinking on it now, it reminds me of a child that needed an I.V placed. He was very sick and the only way he would get better was through placing an I.V into his vein to administer proper hydration and medication. The child had a fear of medical professionals from years of getting needles for vaccines. When he saw me, he tensed up. Then he saw the needle.

Just like me, that child was kicking and screaming, and crying, and begging for me to go away. He knew what a needle meant and he didn’t want to feel the pain. Even worse, we had to hold him down with the help of the mother, in order to give the medicine. The poor boy was furious, and he cried and sniffled afterwards.

However, in a few days, he had gotten better. He had completly forgotten his anger with me and began telling me cute little stories when I would come in to give him his medicine.

He needed help, but he was more concerned at the time about the pain of his help than the healing he needed. Similarly, I was more focused on how God’s lessons were making me feel, rather than what it was trying to heal.

If God would just make the problems go away, everything would be well. Yet, like the child, I was sick. And God, being a good Father, knew I needed to be healed before I could move forward.

By no means do I think myself to have attained this healing completely. The acknowledgement of the problem was the first step, albeit the hardest to reach. Now that I understand what God is trying to do, I am able to discern when my wounded patterns present in my life. I’m allowing my life to be not-so-perfect. Letting go of my control and allowing God to do what He wants with my life, even if it doesn’t fit into the plan I had.

More than anything, I see how I made an idol of my own desires, elevating them above the will of God. So great was my attachment to my plans, that I found my desire for God to fluctuate with how close his will matched my vision for my life.

How prideful!

Thank You Jesus!

Now that I have allowed God to reveal me to myself, He is revealing Himself to me.

This has been my reward. To see the reflection of God’s character in areas of myself that I didn’t know existed. Reaching into memories I had long buried away and staking claim to the unhealthy habits I had created over the years.

Thank you Jesus!

Daily, I allow Him to remind me of how He sees me. That my worth is not in this world like I am conditioned to believe. He loved me before I was anything. Before the degrees, the achievements, the engagement, the ministries. He isn’t as concerned about those aspects of my life the way I am. My Father is more concerned about my relationship with Him, not my relationship with this world.

While I’m concerned about my dream homestead, my dream career, my dream marriage, my dream home; God is focused on my trust in Him, teaching me, creating a heart that is wholly His. So I praise God for forcing me to see the truth of my perfectionist mindset.

I now understand that my constant pursuit of “the best” was just an overachieving veil, covering deeply rooted insecurity, embarrassment, and fears. And even with all of my kicking and fighting, God would not give up on me. He didn’t stop trying to save me from myself. And now, I can say like the psalmist:

I sought the LORD, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears (Psalm 34:4 NKJV)

My life doesn’t have to be perfect. A life of true value is one forged through a faithfully intimate relationship with Jesus.

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