Perfect, so no one else has to be

This might just be the most gut wrenchingly honest posts I have ever written. I struggle with perfectionism, but not in its traditional form. No, my grammar doesn’t have to be right, nor my spelling, nor my sentence structure when it comes to writing. My house doesn’t have to be clean, and my car could be considered a bio-hazard. But when it comes to living my life, I want to do it perfect, so that no one else has to be.

Following the date rape, I acted perfect, I never told anyone, I was perfect, so no one else had to be. I would save myself, and I would save them as well.

Got married, had two kids, a boy and a girl, perfect, so no one else had to be.

I got depressed, I went to counseling, and I was the perfect counselee, so my counselor wouldn’t have to deal with the messy parts, perfect client, so she didn’t have to be.

In my healing, I had to start this blog, I had to do something good with it, I had to do it perfectly so no one else had to be.

In writing this book, I can’t even sit down and map out the structure, because every time I do, I delete the entire thing, it wasn’t perfect, and I have believed that it has to be.

I have been broken, and open about my brokenness, but I would not be telling the truth if I said that I did it all out of the desire to help others. Some of it was out of knowing that to not admit my brokenness would break me further, so I made myself perfectly broken, so that no one would have to “help” me. I would make myself the most perfectly broken person the world had ever known.

My biggest fear is needing help, and yet that is exactly what this process of writing, healing, humbling, crying, falling has caused me to be. Broken, finally acknowledging that I need my Jesus, not just because He looks good to have around, but because he was broken so I didn’t have to be.

And yet for the first time, I think I am realizing, for reals this time, that Christ was perfect, so I didn’t have to be.

I just may have the subject and title of that book yet, a perfectionists struggle who was perfect so no one else had to be, until she finally realized that there is only one who is perfect, so she doesn’t have to be.

This blog post is not perfect, my book proposal will not be perfect, but I will write it, and I will write it from the gut wrenchingly honest viewpoint of my struggle with perfectionism, and it will not be perfect, because it doesn’t have to be.

Jesus thank you for loving me unperfected. I need you so bad. Thank you for letting me literally fall down off of my bike tonight so that you could speak to my heart. Thank you Jesus. I love you.