This blog is for any person out there who struggles with perfectionism and forgiving of themselves like me! It’s time for us to hang up our perfectionista hats and embrace the grace that God so freely gives us!”
Hey loves! As you all know I have been sharing with you all that over the past few months that I was struggling with a lot emotionally. One of those things I struggled with was, in fact, perfectionism. I have struggled with perfectionism for AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER! From an early age, I remember wanting to be the BEST of the BEST and as a result, I pushed myself hard and scolded myself over my failures even harder!
To some extent, this worked out in my favor. I won my 4th grade spelling bee and was valedictorian of my 6th grade class. I also went on to become the Valedictorian of my high school class which allowed me to receive numerous scholarships from the University of Texas at Austin, the state of Texas as well as Coca-Cola. That allowed me to go to college for 4 years on a full ride! I was the first in my family to successfully attend and graduate from college. I went even further to obtain my Masters degree in professional accounting and also later got certified as a public accountant (CPA).
However, as much success that I got to experience, there were also many failures along the way. I lost my virginity, got engaged and then had to call off my engagement, ended up in abusive relationships, ended up in controlling relationships and more. And every single time I went through a season of failure, I would be sooo hard on myself, saying things like:
“You were raised in the church, how dare you lose your virginity?! You know better!”
“Because you lost your virginity, look, now you have to call of your engagement. God is punishing you. This is exactly what you deserve!”
“If you weren’t so insecure, you would stop dating these controlling and abusive men. What is wrong with you?!”
Let’s be honest – most of us are our own worst critics and we beat ourselves up so much over our past mistakes. For me, I felt like because I was raised in the church, I KNEW better. And because I KNEW better, God was calling me to BE better. And if I failed, my punishment and the consequences of my sins would be MUCH WORSE than anybody else because I am not allowed to make mistakes. Susie can sleep around all she wants to. Not me. Paul can do whatever he wants to. Not me. Nope. Not Videllia. There was no way God would forgive me of my sins because I knew better. I was supposed to be perfect.
Ugh! Let me tell you all that perfectionism has almost been the death of me. The constant need to be perfect and to live a perfect life has weighed on me for far too long! Faarrr tooo long. It has caused a lot of anxiety and stress among other health issues. Even in the current season I’m in, I found myself struggling with perfectionism again.
But you know what I’m learning now (at 30) that I hope will encourage another Pefectionista out there?! I’m learning and truly believing that no one is perfect. Hell we would never be perfect no matter how hard we tried. And you know what– that is okay! One of my friends told me to stop thinking that my sins are bigger than God. There is enough BLOOD for that. In other words, God sent his son Jesus to die for our sins and he shed his blood so that we could be free from the bondage of sin. That means he shed enough blood for you AND he shed enough blood for me. There’s enough BLOOD to cover all of our sins equally!!!! Can I get an amen?!
I am so thankful that my eyes are now opened and that I realize that striving to be better is okay but allowing the spirit of perfectionism to govern my life is NOT okay. That means I’m putting too much power and giving too much power to ME. In essence, I’ve idolized myself so much that I put my own self on a pedestal and that is NEVER okay in God’s eyes. The Bible says we can do all things THROUGH Christ who strengthens us. That means we cannot make it through this world on our own. No matter what we do ourselves, we will never be able to achieve that perfection we so desperately want to obtain. NEVER! We have to learn to rely on God’s strength to help us get through those failures in life. And we have to learn to walk in the forgiveness that he gives us through the shedding of his blood for the remission of our sins.
God wants us to live a life free of sin, shame and yes, even perfectionism. The question is will you choose to accept that its okay not being perfect and learn to rely on a PERFECT God to cover all of your imperfections and turn them around to work in your favor? I hope that we all do because a freed life is so much better than constantly beating ourselves up for not being perfect…
~Videllia
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