perfection

There's knowing I am not perfect, and there's believing I will truly never be perfect, no matter how hard I try, so I will stop trying to achieve perfection.

It's actually crazy to me that I hold myself, my image, my accomplishments, and my likability to a standard of actual perfection, especially since I have yet to meet this incredibly high bar that I have set for myself. The meanest anyone has probably ever been to me is me speaking to myself through the lies and hurtful words I constantly feed myself and essentially force myself to believe on a daily basis.

One of the areas in my life that I feel the most opposite of "perfect" is my relationships, specifically dating. Because I tend to overanalyze my relationships and continually point blame toward myself - when, in all honesty, there's no need to blame anyone - dating, so far, has left me feeling a lot of guilt, regret, shame, insecurity, fear, and worry.

There's two sides to these feelings - one is me choosing to live in the past by reliving, over and over and over, the times that I "failed" in a relationship trying to remember all the things I said or did wrong. Then, comes the shame and guilt from remembering all of the things I said and did wrong. And lastly, comes the regret from remembering I did these things when I was acting out of insecurity or worry or jealousy. I even go so far as to tell myself that the really, really hurtful things that have been said or done to me can also be traced back to something I did wrong, because oh, if I had just done or said this instead, or not done or said that, then they never would have felt the need to act that way because they would like me way more and would wanna treat me the way I think? I hope? I deserve to be treated.

On the other end, I constantly feel so much worry and fear that I will never be good enough for someone because, in my mind, I have failed so miserably in the past and been so far from being this ideal person that I have told myself I needed to be in order to be successful, happy, confident, and secure, both in life and in relationships.

All this to say, these feelings that I have let grow and take over the truths that I know in my heart are the result of me being an imperfect, sinful human. A human who falls short of perfection daily, but a human who is also covered in the perfect love and grace of Jesus Himself, whether I choose to acknowledge and receive Him or not.

I think I look back on times when I was being really hard on myself and I actually let myself believe that I "lost my faith" or "wasn't really a Christian" during that time in my life because I wasn't "acting the way I was supposed to be acting" or I wasn't "making decisions that reflected who Jesus is or how He feels about me" and I find myself often trying to hit the reset button and say "Okay, now I am ready to follow You Jesus and I am ready to actually live a life that I think honors and reflects you" and in my mind, this reset = perfection from here on out. So when I fail at this, I do it again and again and again. I have felt so obsessed with pleasing everyone around me - not only pleasing them, but tricking them into thinking I am the most have-it-all-together, happy, confident, fun person ever.

I am also so focused on how the things I am doing make me feel about myself that I forget the One whose opinion matters more than anything. The single defining opinion in existence to have meaning and value, and it's the one I forget to acknowledge the most.

So, when it comes to relationships that have not played out the way I would have hoped and ended in so much hurt and regret, it's not that I didn't love Jesus or want to follow Him during these times in my life, it's that, as an imperfect human, I got lost and caught up in the worldly opinions and standards all around me because I was trying to achieve the standard that I have set for myself based off of nothing but lies.

One of my favorite things about Jesus is His stability, security, and safety. He's the only One who can never hurt me - this makes me feel weepy because I have hurt Him more than anyone else. On my darkest day, throughout my biggest failure, after my worst mistake, Jesus loves me as much as He will on my best day. This doesn't mean that my sins are okay or are justified in any way - just that my sins are not able to define me and therefore, I should not allow them to cause me to live in the past or fear the future.

Even walking through life with Jesus right by my side will never ever be perfect and as much as I strive to be like Him and love Him more in my every day life, I will mess up over and over again and fall short without fail. My relationship with Jesus is not meant to make me perfect; it's a relationship where I hope and pray I will know & love Him more every day, and therefore, become more like Him and more in tune with His plan for my life.