A Perfectionist Surrenders (Part 3)

(Continued from this post)

We had our second child just 15½ months after our first.  Our third child followed 18 months later.  Then, we wrapped up the whole deal with our fourth and final child, born a few months shy of five years after the first.  Four kids in five years.  Well, you’re thinking, she sure must have gotten over that feeling of helplessness!  Nope.  Not even a little.  I continued to battle post-partum depression following my pregnancies.  Feelings of inadequacy and failure haunted me every step of the way.  You’d think that having four kids would make a person a bit of an expert by the fourth, but it just doesn’t work that way.  First of all, each child is entirely different than the last. In addition, as soon as you think you’ve started to get a handle on one issue, they leave that one in the dust and dream up three more!  I constantly felt in over my head.

But something else was happening in the midst of that helpless place:  I was getting to know my Savior.  Oh, I had known Him for 20 some years to a certain extent, but this…this was different.  Before, I knew God like a neighbor at a barbecue.  Now, I knew God like a soldier in a foxhole.  For years I prayed that God would take away my inadequacy as a parent.  He refused.  He still refuses.  Instead, He whispered to my heart, Without Me, you can do nothing.  I AM who you are not; I can do what you cannot.  I am enough.  Rest in Me.  Walk with Me.

I have, and I have found Him to be sufficient beyond my wildest dreams.

I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was just 4 years old.  As I grew older, I read my Bible, prayed and went to church because I wanted to know Him, please Him and, also, simply because I knew that I should.  Through years of teaching me about my utter dependence upon Himself, however, Jesus became not only my Savior but also my Lord.  Now, I read my Bible because I have a burning desire to hear from Him—I need His words like I need my next meal.  I pray because I can’t survive without Him—I need His Spirit like I need the air I pull into my lungs with every breath.  I worship because He didn’t just save me once, He saves me still—every moment of every day.

I’m still in over my head.  Parenting still frequently overwhelms me.  There are problems all over the place.  There are things that need to be tweaked over here, and things that need a downright overhaul over there.  There are loose ends everywhere, and some days I worry that if just one of them gets tugged, the whole darn thing will unravel.  But then I remember that our lives are firmly attached to His grand weaving loom; the loose ends aren’t a mistake or an oversight, they’re just opportunities waiting to be woven together into another part of His masterpiece.

I still struggle with perfectionism, but now I recognize it for what it is:  pride.  It is a presumptuous attempt to take back the life that I have surrendered to Him—a life that I have no capability to live on my own.

Occasionally, someone will tell me what great kids I have and what a great mom they think I am.  I do have great kids, but I respond that it’s God’s grace that has made them that way.  Usually, I receive a blank stare or even a well-intentioned argument in return.  But it’s true.  If you could see inside the depths of my heart, if you could really understand the whole story that I’ve lived, you would know it to be so.

How does God rescue a perfectionist?  By plunging her into an ocean that’s way over her head and keeping her there for a very long time.  It is there, as she comes to grips with the maddening fact that she can’t swim, can’t tread water, can’t even float, that she finally stops her incessant thrashing.  And then, in a stunning act of incredible grace, He reaches down to take her hand and lifts her up to walk on water.

“I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me, you can do nothing.”

~John 15:5

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

~2 Corinthians 12:9