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Shame, Grace and Perfectionism (or, “How to Cure Hyperventilation for Fun and Profit”)

I have a great phone. No, it’s not an iPhone, but it’s still has pretty much all the features I need. For instance, it has a calendar that reminds me that it’s my second-cousin-once-removed’s birthday next Wednesday, or when I have a doctor’s appointment, or when my second-cousin-once-removed has a doctor’s appointment. It’s a great option on a great phone, and I depend on it…well, greatly.  If my phone doesn’t tell me about an event, it doesn’t exist in my life. I put paydays and parties and Tapestry blog days in it, and everything works perfectly.

I have a great phone. No, it’s not an iPhone, but it’s still has pretty much all the features I need. For instance, it has a calendar that reminds me that it’s my second-cousin-once-removed’s birthday next Wednesday, or when I have a doctor’s appointment, or when my second-cousin-once-removed has a doctor’s appointment. It’s a great option on a great phone, and I depend on it…well, greatly.  If my phone doesn’t tell me about an event, it doesn’t exist in my life. I put paydays and parties and Tapestry blog days in it, and everything works perfectly.

Except when it doesn’t. 

Like on Sunday night when the great calendar on my great phone didn’t remind me–or, more probably, I didn’t see the reminder due to user error–that it was my turn to blog on Monday. And so I didn’t do it. I failed. publically, too.

Now, you need to know something about me: I have perfectionism issues, and shame issues too. And as someone who struggles with perfectionism and shame, I have many great gadgets and systems and idiosyncracies to insulate me from such failures. I have spell check and an editor’s obsessiveness. I have alarms and calendars and reminders and emails that can’t leave my inbox until they’re finished. I ask people to remind me, ask me, nag me to do things.

I do all this because I am not perfect, but I want everyone to think that I am. I want people to think I’m wonderful, valuable, infallable, but I know how far from that I am. I don’t say this to fish for compliments, or because I have poor self esteem. I say this because it’s our shared secret: that you and I and everybody else worries that we’re supposed to be perfect. 

Guess what? We’ve been conned. We’ve been handed a big fat lying equation: that what we do equals what we’re worth. We’ve all believed to some extent that we need to be near-perfect, but we’re utterly, hopelessly un-perfect. So we try to fake it, and that usually works, until it doesn’t–again. We slip and fail, hyperventilate or hide. Then we have to be even more perfect to make up for the error. Whew–what a losing proposition. 

How about we all admit that we’re quite un-perfect, and that we need a perfect Savior…Thank God we have One. 

 

Laura Singleton’s passion is the transformation that happens when women get access to God’s Word and God’s Word gets access to women. She was twenty-five when her life was turned upside down by an encounter with Jesus Christ. With an insatiable thirst for scripture and theology, she soon headed to Dallas Theological Seminary to learn more about Jesus, and left with a Th.M. with an emphasis in Media Arts. She, along with two friends from DTS, travel the nation filming the independent documentary Looking for God in America. She loves speaking and teaching and is the author of Insight for Living Ministry’s Meeting God in Familiar Places and hundreds of ads, which pay the bills. Her big strong hubby Paul is a former combat medic, which is handy since Laura’s almost died twice already. She loves photography, travel and her two pugs.

6 Comments

  • Sue Bohlin

    Nothing like honesty!

    Bless you for your transparency, Laura! Every time anyone exhibits this degree of honesty and authenticity, it makes it easier for the rest of us to respond well to the embarrassing evidence that we are fallen people living in a fallen world.

    One of my mentors described the point of your blog as "strategies for not losing." It’s amazing how far we’ll go to "not lose." NOT how far we’ll go to win, just "not lose." Because we are desperately afraid that the whispers we hear in our ears are true–that we really are a loser.

    Praise God that He doesn’t agree! We are MORE than conquerers through Him who loved us! (Rom 8:37)

  • Laura Singleton

    Amen!
    So true, Sue. Remarkable how we hard we work to counterfeit ourselves–our true, authentic, Imago Dei selves, which God loves infinitely. As if we can improve on that!

  • Lael Arrington

    Good thoughts, Laura. I sometimes wonder…
    …if our mistakes and crashes are of far more eternal value to us than when we tap dance really well.

    • Laura Singleton

      Absolutely!
      I think you’re on to something, Lael. Failing our own standards forces us to depend on God’s grace and recognize how imperfect we are. I think perfectionism ranks right up there with its relatives pride and self-sufficiency in blocking God’s power in and through us…

  • Sharifa Stevens

    Me, too!

    Laura,

    In my effort to "not lose/publically fail" this week, I wrote my blog entry this weekend. I was so happy with it, I did a little "I still have some semblance of creativity" dance!

    And this morning, I almost forgot to publish it.

    Ha! I’m standing right next to you, sister. :o)