Standards of Perfection

I keep finding myself in days that feel off. Everything discolored by this vague feeling of guilt.

Because I don't know how to be happy with who I am when I'm not perfect, when I don't feel everything I think I should feel.

Welcome to impossible standards.

I hold myself to standards that are ridiculous. To always feel it. To doubt the goodness anything that I might not have done with the right heart. To think that I always have to feel inadequate, anything else is pride.

It's exhausting.

And I'm not sure how to get out of it. How do I break free of my impossible standards? My drive for perfection? How do I live in joy, live in love, not in a quest for perfection?

~*~

Here when the healing hasn't happened yet.

We all know those songs. Those lines that we feel in some deep parts of ourselves, we might not know why those words mean so much to us, but we know they do.

And for me, Ellie Holcomb holds some of those lines in her songs. Find You Here is the one I've quoted, and it's this beautiful story about how God is with us, always. And, we can lay our worries down and focus on Him.

God is with me when I'm not perfect. My imperfection's never stopped Him before, and it won't stop Him now.

God's with me when I'm on the journey, when I'm not there yet. And, in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 God tells me to rejoice always. To pray continually, to bring all my troubles to him, and to give thanks in all circumstances.

~*~

But there's this voice. This voice that says any happiness I have is fake, that it's better to feel guilty and downtrodden than to have happiness and peace, because that happiness and peace could be fake.

Maybe I'm just faking it.

Maybe I don't really love God.

Maybe I haven't done enough.

Inadequate. Guilty. Struggling.

It's a hard voice to fight. I'm never sure if I'm fighting it right, or if I'm failing at fighting it by just trying to cover it up. To ignore it. Is ignoring it good? Bad?

It's hard to go on when you're not sure what path you're on. It's hard to try and fight when you're not sure if you're getting to the roots of things, or only trimming the outcroppings.

But, there's something important to realize when the voice shows up.

I can't win this battle. Flat out. I can't get past this pride that says it's all about my feelings. I can't get myself past this struggle and into any season where I feel that love for God. I can't be perfect. I can't reach my impossible standards. I can't make my relationship with God right. I can't grow myself how I need to grow.

I can't.

But, I know someone who can. If this voice is going to shut up, it's going to be God who shuts it up. And, maybe it isn't going to shut up for a while. Because, if this voice shuts up, it's going to be for God's glory. When I grow in God, it's going to be for God's glory.

And sometimes that means waiting.

But there's this peace. In knowing that, whatever  happens, it's going to be for God's glory. If I struggle with this, this need to be perfect and this misunderstanding with grace for the rest of this year of the rest of this week, it's going to be for God's glory.

I can't win this battle. But, God can. And He will do as He wills, for His glory.

I don't have to understand. I don't have to like it. I just need to trust God and to hold to His promises, that He is bigger than my giants, He loves me, and he has adopted me.

I don't have to be perfect, I don't have to listen to the voice, and I can rejoice that God is bigger than my failures, than the times when I will try to be perfect, and the times that I'll give into the voice. He is big in those moments, and He is full of ridiculous grace.

So here's to rejoicing that God is bigger than we are, but that never stopped Him from loving us. We're safe in Him.

~ Rebecca P.