Well first things first! Sorry about the lapse in blogging for over two weeks!! Life has been very busy and very good at the same time. I am learning a lot. However, what I choose to blog about today are two things that I have constantly struggled with for probably most of my life, and had yet to realize just how deep these thing run into my heart. So, here it goes.
Recently at church we have been doing the iMarriage series by Andy Stanley. It was amazing. But the first lesson was over expectations, and how we turn our desires at the altar into expectations some time during the first year of our marriage. So, we were asked to think about what expectations we had placed on our spouse, and what expectations we felt they had placed on us. I thought and thought, and for two reasons I could not think of any expectations that Dean had placed on me, that I could feel. Reason number one: he is amazing, and only wants to pamper me, which I sometimes, (ok most of the time) take for granted. Reason number two: I have too many expectations for myself.
I expect nothing less than the best of myself, and quite honestly, most of the time, others too. For this reason, I have never met anyone who had higher expectations for me than I did. No one ever asked me to make straight A’s all the way though college. But I called my dad crying after my first political science test because I thought there was no way I could make it up to an A. What did he tell me? It’s ok. It doesn’t have to be an A. What did I force myself to get even though I hated the class-an A. Back into high school. Every work out that I ever had, I expected to be the best workout. If it wasn’t, I normally ended up crying about it, either while it was going on, or shortly thereafter. Because it wrecked me on the inside that I couldn’t be better than I was the day before. Always going up. No room for human weakness, or error, but I had to be better than the day before, every single day. The summer after sixth grade, (yes, I was around 12) my little dribblers team went to the National Tournament. We were down by two with basically no time left in the championship game, and a teammate purposely missed a freethrow, hoping that one of us would rebound it. Guess who did. And guess who missed the box shot at the buzzer. So, when the second place trophy made it home to my room, guess where it went: hidden under everything I could find in the closet, so that I didn’t have to look at it. Until my mom found it and rightly so, told me it must be displayed in my room. (I think she did this not so much to make me proud, but to make me accept that second place was ok. It didn’t work.) I am no less hard on myself in relationships. For one reason, I hate conflict, so I would just prefer to be perfect in my relationships, but again, I do not allow myself any slack. Not even in my marriage. Even though I have only now been married for nine months. I expect way too much of myself. I expect to in my second year of teaching, have that down to an art where I never make mistakes, and then be able to come home, work out, cook dinner, eat dinner, clean the kitchen, make sure the house is clean, grade papers and even do a few loads of laundry all in one night. Let’s just say that this rarely happens. I feel like I must accomplish these things daily in order to be a good wife. Not a great wife, but simply a good wife. Barely meeting the standard. Barely passing. My husband, great and amazing man of God that he is, on the other hand, constantly tells me thank you. For making dinner. He doesn’t expect it. He appreciates it. He says thank you for doing the dishes, and for folding the laundry. All the things that I think I must do and constantly be on top of, he sees as icing on the cake. And it is wonderful. So, I have the highest expectations possible for myself. But, what do expectations do to your heart?
Hold it captive. Keep you in bondage. And fear. Of not being enough. When really, most of the world is probably of the belief that you are too much. I know this. And I am aware of the expectations of others, but they are not nearly as detrimental to me as my own expectations. Why must I break free of this? Because lacking one load of laundry, or one set of papers, will keep me from blogging. It will keep me from reading. It will keep me from enjoying life. From spending time with my precious Jesus. My own expectations will keep me from living. From loving. Because I don’t have time, simply because I must jump over the impossibly high bar that I have set for myself. Not anyone else, but for myself. I don’t want to live like this. Jesus doesn’t want me to live like this. He wants me to rest in his love. Rest and trust in what was accomplished for me on the cross. Trust him, and let him be enough through me. This is how I desire to live. With an internal beauty and peace that speaks to others, “all will be well.”
I am not saying that standards are bad. That having goals and dreams for yourself is bad. Just don’t set them so high that no one but Jesus could attain them. Don’t set them at the level of perfection.
Foolishly enough, I somehow thought that I was getting better in this area, but I was mistaken. Lol. I realized this, when I was doing my daily devotional one morning last week, and it was on, well, perfectionism. The line that struck me, was this: “do you look at every opportunity for success as an opportunity to fail?” My answer: yes. I get ready in the morning, thinking about how to fix things that I might do wrong. Not giving myself any benefit of a doubt, but figuring out ways to fix mistakes that haven’t happened yet. I think about areas I could mess up in. Not areas I could be successful in, but how can I fail today? And I am so afraid of failing, that I think about how to cover it up, or hide it, or fix it, before it happens!! This is crazy! Because, I don’t fail often, by the grace of Jesus. He carries me. Protects me from my greatest fears. But I don’t want to live in fear. I want to live in life. I want to think about how to be successful, how to love, how to share my heart with those I come in contact with every day. I don’t want to think about how I might fail them. I want to think about Jesus!! I want to spend my time talking to him, and not petitioning him to save me from failure, but just basking in his presence. Letting him love me for the failure that I am. Because I could never be enough. But that is ok. Because I now know where perfection takes you. To the cross. The only ever man that was ever perfect, was Jesus. And what did he do? He died for us. He was the only one worthy because he was: perfect. On the terrible but oh so wonderful cross. Because he knew that none of us would ever be perfect. I don’t love people enough to take on their sins, and I am not good enough to. I never could be. But he was, and so I am grateful, so very grateful. So, ironically, where does this journey of breaking the sin of perfectionism take me? To the cross. To the redeeming blood that it provided. To the everlasting, and abundant life that the Lord came for me to have. So that is where I will go.
In saying all of this, I take captive every thought to the power and truth of Christ. Every thought and lie that tells me I am not enough. That tells me I must do more, be more, work harder. That I must never fail. Never make a mistake. I take them captive, and I tell them no. I will fight for my freedom. Christ died so that I could be free, and free I will be. Through his love. Through his strength. Thank you Jesus, and amen.
Brooke
) However, as the presenter, would begin to get us started doing the model drawing, something inside of me clicked. I suddenly understood how to do the problem, and had a desire to work ahead, and see if I could solve it on my own! And to my great pleasure, I could!! (At one point, I asked one of my fellow teachers if we could raise our hands to show who got it right…still working on that whole being competitive about everything thing!) It thrilled me to realize that I could work these problems that I thought I would not be able to figure out. I wanted extra practice so I could keep working at them and be successful! And that is when it hit me.
