Perfection.
I never set out to achieve this illusive idea. Back in the day, when I was growing up, I didn’t feel pressure to be perfect. In fact, as a middle child, I saw that perfection was an impossible task. So, when I became the wife of a hopeful pastor-to-be, I knew I was supposed to shine the light of Christ to those around me (as all people who have a relationship with Jesus should) but I knew I would never be perfect until the other side of life.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and somehow I’ve lost the ability to see reason, where perfection is concerned. As the internet became a full blown lifestyle for the entire world, and perfect images and writing seemed almost commonplace, I stood out as an all-too-imperfect specimen. While I had been comfortable in my seeming mediocrity, I was no longer content to be so.
Since beginning my venture into blogging/writing, I have received flack from the most surprising of places. People that I thought were fairly supportive began seeing me for who I truly was. I was being, what I thought, was real. Apparently, my real is hard to swallow. Somehow, I was supposed to have risen above what life dealt and not be human. Then, with the perusal of other people’s lives, I began to think there was something awfully wrong with being real.
Don’t get me wrong. I get what they were trying to say. They were trying to point out to me that maybe I wasn’t at the place I was supposed to be. I was over-sharing. I should be an example, a beacon. I shouldn’t still be struggling with very human issues. Sinful issues. I shouldn’t be that immature. You know what? They were a little right.
“I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.” (Rom. 7:15 NLT – the apostle Paul speaking)
And wrong.
If Paul, who wrote many of the books in the New Testament struggled, maybe it isn’t so unusual for a mature believer to struggle…
So, with people telling me that it wasn’t really very mature of me to share my struggles and that I should be in a different place PLUS the rest of the “world” pushing the illusion of perfection, I stopped wanting to be real.
Except that there is one thing about being real. Being real makes you relatable.
While drawing closer to God does change you and putting his Word in your memory and heart does make the temptation and lure of the world less appealing, there is going to be a struggle until we die. We are ALL at different places in our spiritual walk. Some of us are far away, some of us are long into our journey and have come a long way.
The good news is that there is grace for ALL.
Emerging from the Chrysalis 