Trying

Hi, my name is Krista and I'm a perfectionist.

"Hi Krista"

 A lot of things in life seem to come fairly easily to me.  School, music, planning.  Or maybe it's just that I stay away from things I know I'm NOT good at - competitive sports, speech and debate, etc.

That said, I never realized I was a perfectionist until roughly this past year.  When you get kids all the perfect planning and organizing and having things exactly the way you want it goes right out the window.  One kid, I worked with it.  Two kids, I'm drowning.

I don't know how to let go.  My house is never as clean as I'd like it.  My laundry is NEVER done (add cloth diapers to the mix).  I haven't finished a single one of the Bible studies we've done in the last two years.  I have a never ending list of things that I DIDN'T get done in a day.

But the biggest thing is my relationship with God.  I can't tell you the last time that I just sat down and read my Bible.  The last time I felt like I had a conversation with God that wasn't more of a one-liner thrown out in desperation. 

Recently I came across a letter that I wrote ten years ago.  An intentional time capsule.  And yes, I was in the habit of writing letters to God back then.  It was my form of journaling. 

I opened it up having no real memory of what I wrote other than it was the fall after I'd spent a summer working in Yellowstone with some crazy intense people and experiences.  The first line kicked me in the gut. "In 10 years I hope I am much more of a godly woman than I am today."

When I look at that and think about that time in my life I remember how much I leaned into God.  I was lost in Yellowstone, completely out of my comfort zone, and He was the only reason I stayed.  He put people there to support me, but I remember spending many hours reading my Bible and the peace that I had in that season was amazing. Not that I didn't have to learn that lesson again a few times, but it was there.  Now, not so much.

The last line of the letter says, "Help me to be faithful to you and content with wherever you take me in life".  And I look at my life today and think, "Where is the evidence of that?"  If anything I feel so much farther from Him now than I ever have.  I suppose you might say I'm content, but only because I don't know where to go from here.  I don't really think that qualifies at contentment.

And I'm not happy with the way I am.  The hardest part is that I feel like I'm trying.  I feel like I've been trying for the past 10 years.  Trying as best I know how and somehow it's not enough.  Whatever I'm doing isn't the right thing to move me "higher up and farther in" (Lewis). 

I feel like because I have somehow failed in doing what I should, that He is not doing the helping me to get there.  That's the part that kills me.  I am at my wit's end in knowing how to change myself and He says He will change me, but I don't see any change.  I want to be different.  I am trying to be different.  Isn't that supposed to be enough?

In the end I'm left feeling not good enough.  Not good enough in the things I do on a daily basis.  Not good enough for God to want to help me out where I'm at.  I know theologically that last sentence is wrong, but in my reality... that's where it's at.  And for a perfectionist, this is a living nightmare.


Please don't tell me I'm wrong.  Please don't tell me it will get better for whatever reason.  This is already taking all I have to push publish, but I can't live like everything's alright anymore when it's not.