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

A Perfectionist Surrenders (Part 2)

(Continued from this post)

Within the first few weeks of parenting, I found myself completely overwhelmed.  Most parents do, I suppose.  Unfortunately, for me it wasn’t temporary.  I sank into post-partum depression and could barely see through the fog.  It’s difficult to put into words the depth of the despair that I felt.  Being a mom had been my life-long dream.  Armed with a bachelors degree in nursing, I had already decided that I was going to stay at home with my future kids; the degree was simply a back-up plan.  My family was going to be my life.  And somehow, terribly, I now found myself not up to the task.  How could a high-achieving, grab-the-world-by-the-tail girl who had put herself through college, pulled a 4.0 GPA in nursing school, and never failed at anything in her life, possibly not be able to handle a 7-pound little squirt?!

I prayed desperately.  I needed God like I had never needed Him before.  Surely, I thought, God is just teaching me a lesson here.  If I pray long and hard enough, He’ll reach down and pull me out of this ditch where I’m lying completely helpless, and then I can give all the glory to Him.  But that was not God’s plan.  God had no intention of eliminating my helplessness, just my hopelessness.

My inadequacies didn’t end as our baby grew older.  It seemed that every new stage she entered brought challenges with it that I had no idea how to handle.  Oh, I read all the books and I followed their advice, but the baby just never seemed to line up with what the books said would be the result of following their wise counsel.  A perfectionist’s nightmare!  What do you mean, the rules don’t work??!!  Parenting was slow, messy and frustrating, and I felt like a failure every single day.  So, you can imagine my husband’s surprise when, at the 6-month mark, I told him that I wanted to have another baby.

WHAT??!!

“Frankly,” he said, “I’m a little surprised that we’ve survived the first one!  Surely, you don’t want to do that all over again?  I’ve just now stopped pulling up the psychiatric department on speed dial every five minutes!”  Mind you, it wasn’t the baby that threw him for a loop—when it came to fatherhood, he was a natural.  It was the deleterious effects of motherhood upon his wife’s sanity that had him shaking in his boots.

I told him that I knew it was crazy, and that I wasn’t at all sure that I could handle it.  And then I looked into his eyes and willed him to understand something that was happening in my heart—something I couldn’t adequately put into words.  “I don’t want to walk away from having another child because I feel like I can’t handle it.  I don’t want to back away from the cliff just because it terrifies me.  I think God means for me to get in even further over my head.”

It made no sense—not to me, and not to him.  But the Holy Spirit must have been leading the conversation because if what I said was crazy, what my husband said next was ludicrous.  He said, “OK.”

(to be continued here)

A Perfectionist Surrenders (Part 1)

Hello.  My name is Elizabeth, and I am a recovering perfectionist.

(Hello, Elizabeth.)

The funny thing is I didn’t even know that about myself until someone pointed it out to me about 10 years ago, during a time when my world failed to make sense.  All I knew was that I was the kind of girl who could get things done and do them well.  Tough class?  Study harder.  Complicated piano piece?  Practice longer.  Nursing degree to earn/night shift job to work/wedding to plan?  Kiss sleep goodbye and spin that hamster wheel, baby!  Spiritual life?  All boxes checked and organized alphabetically, thank you.

I had never encountered an obstacle that I couldn’t overcome simply by working harder.  And not only did I get the job done, I did it with flair.  So help me, my performance was going to be as good as (and hopefully a far sight better) than the people around me!  You see, there was a twisted pay-off for all that hard work:  approval.  The better I was, the more people thought well of me, and I soaked up that approval like a thirsty camel in the desert.  This system worked well for me for many years.  And then I had a baby.

Have you ever noticed that God custom designs a personal boot camp for all of us?  Whatever your particular weakness may be, you can bet that God will design a set of circumstances meant to chip away at it.  So, if you were God, and you had to deal with shaping the character of a perfectionist, into what circumstances would you plunge her?  Hmm…something that’s the very opposite of clean, neat and tidy…something that’s messy, nebulous and difficult for her to get her arms around...the situation should last for a number of years so she can’t just grit her teeth and wait it out…something that’s absolutely impossible to get perfect no matter how hard she tries, but important enough that she feels deeply compelled to try…I’ve got it!  Parenting!

When I was pregnant with our oldest daughter, I had a recurring daydream in which I liked to indulge:  I pictured myself sitting in a comfy rocking chair, positioned just perfectly in front of a south-facing window so as to allow a beam of smooth, buttery sunlight to fall gently on my shoulder.  My beautiful infant is at my breast, snuggled up in a soft, fuzzy blanket, tiny fingers curled around a single finger of my own, gazing into my eyes with utter contentment as she fills her little tummy with milk.

(Cue record needle scratch…)

My little 6 pound 12 ounce baby was absolutely beautiful, and we did own more than one soft, fuzzy blanket, but that’s precisely where the daydream ended.  For the record, there is no beam of smooth, buttery sunlight coming through the window at 2:00 in the morning.  Duh.  And my child did not serenely dine at the breast.  She guzzled like a sailor in a bar for about three minutes flat, refused to drink one drop more, and then spewed that precious milk at high velocity toward the carpet.  Bless her heart.

A lactation consultant at the hospital (Lord, forgive her, for she kneweth not what she was doing) determined that my baby was not eating for a long enough duration of time.  I was too naïve to know that I could have, and should have, pushed back.  She put us on a handy-dandy feeding schedule that looked like this:  wake the baby up every three hours to breastfeed for as long as we could manage (this involved at least 45 minutes of hopelessly prodding our infant to eat when she had fallen deeply and utterly asleep after the first 3 minutes of drunken guzzling); then, use a breast pump to extract the remaining milk; finally, attempt once again to interrupt the unconscious slumber of the infant and finger feed her (with a syringe and tiny tube) the remaining milk.  The lactation consultant forgot to mention the step where the baby throws up all the milk you just spent an hour and a half cramming into her stomach.

This was an around-the-clock schedule.  By the time I had accomplished all the steps, cleaned myself up, and lied awake in bed convincing myself that I was surely going to be the cause of our precious baby’s starvation, I only had about 30 minutes to sleep before getting up and doing it all over again.  I was exhausted, I was scared, and I was slipping.

(to be continued here)

Truth & Questions

My husband and I were discussing some current events earlier this week. We were commenting on how they relate to a moral issue that we feel strongly about--an issue that is quite polarizing in our culture.  Our older two children were perceptive enough to pick up on our conversation, and our son, in particular, was very attentive.  As the conversation wound down, he quietly asked me a question--hesitantly, as though he feared it might be out of bounds:  "Mom, I totally agree with you and Dad and everything you said, but...have you ever wondered if you might be wrong?  I mean, I don't think you are!  But...how do you know for sure?"

Such an important, pivotal question.

I decided to pull a move out of Jesus' playbook and answered his question with one of my own:  "How do you know, son?  How does a person search out what is true?"  The mention of truth jogged something in his mind that we've taught our children since they were very small.  There is only one place to find truth, and he knows where it is.  "Well, you would look in the Bible, Mom, to see what God has to say about it."

Bingo.

"That's right, bud.  We always need to consider the possibility that we might be wrong.  And we find the truth by searching God's Word.  Your Dad and I have done that on this issue, and we believe that what God has to say is very clear.  I'd be happy to show you those passages so you can see for yourself."  "Yeah, that'd be good," he replied.

As a parent, there is a small part of my heart that skips a beat when my children question our beliefs like this.   Are they approaching ground where even angels fear to tread?  What if they start questioning and never stop?  What if they question, reason, and come to the wrong conclusion?  Yikes!  But a much larger part of my heart argues back:  Your fear implies that you, yourself, somehow control the faith of your children--that the determining of the convictions of their hearts lies within your hands.  Rubbish!

It is my job as a parent to present the truth to my children--consistently, authentically, clearly, and with conviction.  It is also my duty to fervently pray that they walk in it.  It is the job of the Holy Spirit to convince them of the veracity of that truth and to lead them to a point where they choose to base their entire lives upon it.  The Holy Spirit will not do my job, and I cannot do His.

I have come to believe that my children's spiritual maturity hinges upon them considering the possibility that what their parents believe is dead wrong.

My heart beats faster to even put that in print.  But what other way will it ever become truly theirs?  I don't want them to have my faith, I want them to have their own.  To fear the wrestling process they will undergo as they work out their faith is to presume that God's grace doesn't reach far enough to capture them.  Foolishness!  It is God who leads us to repentance; it is God who draws us to Himself; it is God who fashions our hearts individually.  He's got them, questions and all.

God commands us to teach our children His truth--to talk about it when we sit down, when we walk along the way, when we lie down and when we rise up.  To the best of our ability, we have done this.  We continue to do this.  But reaching the deepest recesses of the heart?  That's God's territory.

So, go ahead and question, my children.  Wonder, ponder, wrestle, debate.  And in your wrestling, seek truth in the one place it is always found:  the Word of God.

"Sanctify them by Your truth.  Your word is truth."

~John 17:17

For Such a Time as This

It's a phrase that calls to mind the Biblical story of Esther.  It's the statement of encouragement that Mordecai, Esther's older cousin and adoptive father, declared to her as he urged her to plead with a pagan king for the life of the Jewish people living within his empire.  It's a declaration of purpose:  the humble acceptance of God's sovereign will and direction upon a life.

This deeply meaningful phrase has always resonated with me when I read through the story of Esther.  Until my recent in-depth study of the book, however, I hadn't fully absorbed the truth that Esther was not the only individual placed within the Medo-Persian empire "for such a time as this."  I should have known it wasn't that simple.  God's workings are rarely singular or linear; they are a complex weaving together of lives for His divine purposes.

What were the Jewish people doing living in a pagan empire far away from home, anyway?  They had been carried away into exile by the Babylonians during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar.  God had warned them what would happen if they refused to live by His commandments.  They persisted in their sin, and God's word came to pass:  they were taken captive and deported.  Years later, the Babylonian empire was conquered by the Medes and the Persians.  This is the Medo-Persian empire within which Mordecai and Esther lived.

But here's the twist in the story:  some of the Israelites had left that empire and returned home years before.  So, why were Mordecai, Esther, and many other Jews still living in a foreign land?

The Jewish temple was one of many things demolished during the Babylonian invasions of Judah.  Between the rule of Nebuchadnezzar and the rule of Xerxes (who was the king in power during Esther's time), there ruled a Persian king named Cyrus.  He was a pagan king and did not personally know the God of Israel.  However, God used Cyrus to accomplish His own purposes.  2 Chronicles tells us that God moved Cyrus to declare that the Jews in captivity within his kingdom could return to their homeland to rebuild God's temple.  Talk about a "get out of jail free" card!  Not only were they allowed to go back home, but they were allowed to rebuild the temple that was the center of their spiritual life.

Interestingly, not all the Jews returned.  Ezra 1:5 tells us that "everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up..." returned to build the temple.  Not everyone, period, but everyone whose spirit God had stirred.  Some Jews remained in the Persian empire because God had chosen not to stir their spirits.  Why?

Only God can answer that question, He is the Master Weaver.  However, I believe the book of Esther gives us a glimpse into why He didn't call everyone to return.  Mordecai's family (and by extension, Esther) were among those who stayed. Had all the Jews gone back to Jerusalem, there would have been no Mordecai to anger Haman.  There would have been no Jews for Haman and Xerxes to place under a decree of mass genocide.  There would have been no young, Jewish girl crowned queen to plead with the heart of the king.  The whole book of Esther would evaporate.  Arguably, that may have been a win for the Jewish people and their mental health, but it most certainly would have been a loss for us.  How much we learn about God's character and sovereign workings from the book of Esther!  God had a story to write within the Medo-Persian empire during those years; He was not yet finished with the Jews who lived there.

So, what of us?  God's Spirit still moves within the hearts of men.  God still calls His people out for "temple-building" missions.  I have learned, however, that God also calls some to remain.  Our hearts are not all stirred in unison; such is the multifaceted purpose and glory of God.  Those Jews who returned to Jerusalem were answering the call of God in their hearts, and it was good.  Those Jews who remained in Medo-Persia were also within the will of God, and it was good.  God had more than one story to write through those years.  Likewise, our hearts will not always be stirred in unison with the believers around us.  We each must evaluate our own hearts:  are they soft and open to the leading of the Holy Spirit?  If so, then we can rest content in our individual callings.

We dare not look in judgement upon the calling and mission of another believer.  God is writing a whole heavenly library worth of stories with our lives.  What an awesome Savior!

Old School Rules

I enjoy having a clean house.  It gives me a pleasant sense of order and well-being.

OK, that makes me sound way more normal and well-adjusted than I really am...

Truth:  when my house is a mess, my stress level instantly spikes, my whole life feels like it’s spinning into chaos, hyperventilation ensues, and I begin barking orders at my “troops” like a hardened drill sergeant.  Call me dramatic, but that’s what happens. Naturally, my husband likes to curb this psychosis before it begins.

One of my nesting pet peeves is a dirty floor.  A clean floor is my love language.  Love the floor, love the woman.  My husband knows this, so he faithfully provides an assortment of tools to help me in my quest for clean floor utopia.  Many years ago, he bought me a small, cordless vacuum that I could use for quick clean-up sorts of jobs – sand from the kids’ shoes in the mudroom, piles of bread crumbs under the table, etc.  It was light and easily maneuverable, and I came to really like having it around.  Problem:  it didn’t last forever.  My husband informed me that this is common for these kinds of cordless devices – the battery turns to junk after a while, and because they’re relatively cheap to buy, they’re also cheaply made.  (I choose to believe that it had nothing, whatsoever, to do with my compulsive over-use of the thing.)  My Man kindly replaced the device for me, and has continued to occasionally do so whenever needed throughout our years of marriage together.

I find my frustration with these devices growing, however.  It seems to take no time at all before the battery charge barely lasts long enough to make it across my kitchen.  And trying to find one that actually creates a good vacuum is nearly impossible.  I reached the breaking point with my most recent device when I found myself vacuuming over the same piece of grass ten times in a futile effort to suck it up.  I finally came to my senses and reached down to pick the dumb grass up with my bare hands, while furiously calculating the cruelest and most painful forms of destruction for my useless vacuum. 

Finally, in a fit of frustration this past week, I broke down and bought a new device.  I was in the market for cheap-but-effective, and, boy, did I find it.  I have discovered the best invention to ever grace the perilous territory of hard-floor cleaning.  I’m almost hesitant to share it with you lest high demand clear the shelves of this beauty…but here it is: it’s a long-handled, hand-powered device that comes equipped with stiff bristles at one end.  It’s amazingly inexpensive, easy to store, and highly effective.  It never breaks down, never needs charging, and the bristles are able to reach into places that my cordless vacuum couldn’t even dream of going.  I believe it’s called a “broom”, and it’s absolutely brilliant!!!

No more messing around with junk cordless vacuums for this domestic diva.  Bring on the sand, dog hair, and miscellaneous food crumbs - I am sweepin’ it old school from now on!

A Letter To My Teenage Self

A fun activity suggested by an author that I enjoy.  Here's my personal spin.



Dear Younger Me,

I see you there, holding that bottle of Sun-In and rockin' those tightly rolled jeans.  You're pretty cute, you know that?  You should consider taking up jogging instead of ice cream, 'cause that figure of yours won't last forever.  But we both know you won't, so let me just clue you in:  Cold Stone Coffee Lovers...no nuts...extra Heath.  You'll thank me.

Overall, you're a bit of a mystery, aren't you?  You never really have fit neatly into one description.  You're a super-sized order of loud and crazy with a generous side helping of quiet and reflective.  That unusual combination will make you feel out of sorts and like a bit of a misfit through your growing up years, but don't let it bother you too much.  It won't ever change, really.  You know all that time you spend alone up in your room, just thinking?  Your parents forever asking, "What are you doing up there?" and your honest reply: "Nothing."  You'll still be doing that decades from now.  You might as well not fight it, because when you don't get that time of silence and solitude to let your thoughts wander free, you start feeling (and acting) like a caged animal. Eventually, you'll figure out that the quiet fuels the energy.  They're both part of who you are, and you can't change either one.  One day, you won't want to anymore.

All that writing you do in your times of solitude?  Keep it up.  (Except, throw away those really early, cheesy poems you wrote. Then pray your mom doesn't dig them out of the trash and save them for posterity.  But forgive her when she does - she loves you.)  There's something about those words God quietly slips into your heart.  They're powerful.  You won't ever really understand how it works, but you'll be very surprised to discover how and where God will use them.

Remember when you were in fourth grade, and those girls in your class called you a "complete spaz" and walked away rolling their eyes?  Don't waste your time letting that tear you up inside.  Twenty years from now, that same enthusiasm and intensity will enable you to encourage and inspire a much larger group of fourth graders (and third graders...and fifth graders...) in their relationship with God.  It's not a defect in your character; it's one of your greatest strengths.

And speaking of fourth grade, you know that boy that you fell head-over-heels for that year?  It's going to take him three years to notice you.  Deal with it.  However, he will notice you eventually.  When he does, there are people who will tell you that it's just puppy love and it's never going to last.  They're wrong.  You're going to marry that boy someday, and he will be one thousand times more wonderful than you can possibly imagine now.

While we're on the subject of boys, might I advise you not to get distracted by a certain cute soccer player in high school?  Let me tell you, cute and charming cannot hold a candle to real, sacrificial love.  And, baby, sacrificial love is exactly what you're going to need when the baby has been up all night and you've gone certifiably psychotic from lack of sleep.  The good news is, sacrificial love is exactly what your husband will end up giving you by the bucketful.  But I've gotta tell ya, honey, cute soccer boy?...he'd have hit the road before you could even say, "Where's the breast pump?"  He's not cut out for real life.  (By the way, neither is that friend's geeky older brother who thought you hung the moon.  One day you'll cringe to think that you even gave him a second glance.)

So, rest assured that you have, indeed, found your true love.  And his mom?  She's just as great as you think she is.  Someday, she'll end up being one of your best friends.  That place she sits every single morning, sipping her coffee and reading her Bible?  Remember it.  Allow it to burn right into your mind.  That image of her will follow you well into adulthood.  One day, when you're desperate to find the depth of character you saw in her, you'll follow her example.  Because you'll know, deep in your heart, that buried in the Word of God at the beginning of every day is the only place to start.

When it comes to moms, by the way, you've got a treasure of your own.  I know she drives you crazy sometimes (trust me, you drive her nuts too), but she loves you with a love so fierce that it threatens to tear her right apart.  Someday, when you meet your own kids, you'll understand.  Try to understand sooner than later.  She, too, will become one of your best friends - one of the very few people in life that you know without question would be there to pick you up if your entire world crumbled under your feet.  She also possesses a strength that you can't begin to imagine right now.  One day, she'll wow you.  You'll stand back and wonder if you could ever possibly be that strong...that brave.  And you'll be so proud of her.

Then there's your Dad.  I know, you're already crazy about him.  What I want you to know is that he never changes.  And neither do you.  Twenty years from now, you'll still catch yourself calling him "Daddy" on occasion, and wrapped up in one of his big, bear hugs will remain one of the safest places in the world.  What you can't imagine yet is the creeping realization that he won't be with you forever.  Years from now, that realization will begin to dawn, and the very thought will steal the breath right out of you.  So, enjoy him.  Every laugh, every tackle, every tickle.  (By the way, the fun comes right back around when you watch him do all that same stuff with your kids.)  Most of all, know that day in and day out, he's giving you a great picture of your heavenly Father.  They're both unfailingly in your corner.

You'll gain another Dad a few years from now.  The Godly man who's currently raising your future husband.  He'll shock the socks off of you when he accepts you as his very own daughter from day one.  He'll sacrifice for you, protect you, and look out for you, just as if you had come from his own body.  And you'll wonder how on earth God ever saw fit to give you not one, but two great Dads.  Give him your respect from the start - he deserves it.

Now, listen up, because here's where it really starts to get important - the one thing I really want you to hear.  Hey, you!  Oh, for the love of Pete, get off the phone with that boy and listen to me!  (Good grief, this must be what your parents felt like.)  Are you listening now?  God doesn't want your performance.  Let me say that again:  God. does. not. want. your. performance.  He wants your heart.  It will take years of struggle before you begin to understand this, but I urge you to find the courage to let go and free fall into His grace.  When you finally do, you'll spend the rest of your life stunned to find that you never hit bottom.

Love,
Future Me