Chasing After Me

You know the people…

…those who are human, yet striving to be superhuman.

…those always, always, always working toward perfection, and are never satisfied.

…those working to please way too many people…trying to make them proud.

…those afraid to share their imperfections, faults and fears, even to those closest to them, because they’re afraid of rejection.

…those afraid of asking questions that challenge the status quo because they don’t want to sound stupid or be seen as rebellious.

…those dying to be all of who they are to everyone, but fear they’ll be abandoned.

If you don’t think you know someone like that, read my bio. Look at my picture. That was me.

Empty.

Lonely.

Fearful.

Insecure.

Unfulfilled.

Then came Grace. Real Grace.

Not the grace you say before you eat…and not the trite religious jargon.

Here’s the thing. I went to church almost all my life. I thought I knew what to say. I thought I knew how to act. Everyone always saw me as the good girl. God forbid they know my questions, doubts, faults and fears. I needed to hide those. From everyone. Even God. I thought I had to do a lot to make up for the things no one would ever know. I thought I had to prove myself. I had to prove to God that I loved and believed in Him. To me, my pursuit of perfection was the same thing as my pursuit of God. That was the way it was supposed to be, right?

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Chasing approval and perfection? Pointless. Embracing the approval and perfection I finally realized I already have? Priceless.

For me, the realization was a process of logic, really. I believed Jesus came to save me. But save me from what? If Jesus brought “Good News,” what was it? Having to hide things? Pretending to be perfect? Being judgmental and closed off from the rest of the world in fear it might taint or impede my own pursuit for perfection?

No wonder people are leaving the church by the thousands. They’re searching for Good News…not an empty set of rules or rituals…or a pursuit of perfection they know they can never attain.

Why did God send Jesus again? To show us the law could be fulfilled? Or to fulfill the law for us?

HA! There’s the catch. You cannot do it better than God.

Sorry to break the news to the religious crowd, but He already fulfilled the law FOR us because He knew we were incapable of living up to His ideals.

The problem is that many Christians acknowledge grace, but forget that Grace came to earth as a loving human being and left footprints in the dirt. They forget that Grace loved so intensely that it lived perfectly just to die and pay for all of humanity’s imperfections. They forget that Grace showed its power and resilience when it returned to be our advocate and make imperfection irrelevant. They forget that Grace tells us there is no condemnation in Love.

Now, that’s Good News.

Grace…the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.

Stew on that for a while. Free means there is no exchange. Free means nothing you have to earn. Free means nothing you have to pay for. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Grace is not religion. In fact, Grace stomped on the face of religion. Religion (and pursuit of perfection) makes you selfish. Grace (and acceptance of who you are) empowers you to be selfless.

Grace constantly transforms me.

Grace allows me to stop worrying about myself so I can focus on letting God’s love overflow from my life into the lives of others.

Grace shows me humility…because there is nothing I can do to make God love me more…and there is nothing I can do that can make God love me less.

Grace teaches me that the point of everything is Jesus…is Love…and everything else is ancillary.

Grace excites.

Grace inspires.

Grace accepts.

Grace loves.

Grace brings hope.

Grace overwhelms me with gratitude.

Grace is so big, so kind and so generous that I cannot fully understand or rationalize it.

Grace erases imperfections. Forever.

Grace changes the game. Forever.

Grace lives. Forever. And nothing can separate me from it or take it away.

Big realization.

I can now be fully alive…unafraid…and eternally connected to Unfailing Love.

Dump religion. Dump perfection. Dump approval. None of it matters.

Let Grace embrace you…God will take it from there.

I never fit in. Not as a child. Not in school. Not now. I don’t think I’m super awkward or geeky (although some may argue that)…I’ve just never fit into anyone’s box.

For years that made me crazy. I tried fitting into ready-made boxes that I thought everyone else fit into…you know, the popular box, the intellectual box, the achiever box, the flirty-cutsie box, the political box, the sensitive and emotional box, the homemaker box, the focused professional box…nothing fit (actually, I could write an entire post on each of those boxes and why I don’t fit).

In my quest to fit into others’ boxes, I realize now I was trying to fit into what I thought were their perfections. For years, I tried to be perfect. I don’t know who I was fooling in trying to fit all these crazy molds. I morphed from unsuccessful perfection to unsuccessful perfection for different audiences. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t faking perfection…I was honestly trying to be perfect…for everyone…including myself (because then I’d fit perfectly in a box).

What the heck?! Talk about stressful! Behind closed doors I would break down under the pressure of perfection, and usually those who loved me most suffered from those breakdowns. (God bless my husband for loving me in spite of that.) I’d explode in anger, or hide in my bed in a sort of mini-depression and cry, or simply sleep for hours.

People, perfection is unhealthy!

Then it hit me. Hard. In an I-think-I-might-puke sort of way. I realized that if my life isn’t a testimony of God’s grace, then I was dissing all He made me to be. NEWS FLASH: perfection doesn’t show God’s love, it’s His love of imperfection that shows God’s true colors. I was being everything God didn’t want me to be.

Why doesn’t anyone teach us that when we’re young? In school we try to get As and be first in everything. We strive for perfection instead of understanding what we have to give to the world, and to other people.

Thirty-three years later, I’m finally starting to get it. It’s been a journey of self-discovery that’s helping me define who I am. Who I am to myself. Who I am to my husband. Who I am to my family. Who I am to my friends. Most importantly, who I am to God.

Revealing my whole self and my whole story refreshed and freed me. It also taught me to appreciate un-boxable traits and hate labels. As soon as I feel someone trying to put me in a box, I kick my way out. As soon as I see others getting boxed in, I want to help them escape. Boxes are confining and force us to fit into someone else’s definition of perfection or label of imperfection.

I’m human, imperfect and unique. And I’m finally OK with that. Even better, I’ve learned valuable lessons along the way:

First: Everything in my past is part of who I am today. Good and bad. I had a hard time with this one. I always wanted to hide things I thought were stupid, embarrassing or too personal. The thing is, the stupid, embarrassing and “too personal” things make me more me than the great things that have landed in my lap. In those moments, I’ve learned about my values, my vulnerabilities and the contents of my heart. Even better, it’s helped me connect to others in deeper and more meaningful ways.

Second: Life is too short to be different things to different people. I had to make a conscious decision to be all of who I am in every moment of life. My Facebook and Twitter friends are great examples: best friends, acquaintances, former co-workers, PR/communications professionals, old friends, authors, techies and Jesus followers. At one time, I didn’t really want any of my boxes to mingle. Talk about not living fully, not being fulfilled…and not living in the fullness I was created to live in! Who cares if I offend my PR/Communications peeps when I talk about God? Who cares if someone decides they don’t want to hear what I have to say if I go on a rampage describing all of the food I’m making? Who cares?! Others don’t need me to be a certain way. God needs me to be the way he made me…it’s better for everyone. And I know there is a purpose.

Third (and most important): Love. Period. Boxes and labels bring judgment (to me and to others). I’ve taught myself to be compulsive about finding something I appreciate about as many people as I can. Sure, people irritate me (in some cases, they infuriate me). But if I can find something, anything, to value in them, then I understand more of them…that one thing helps me see how human they are and helps me love them. If I judge them instead of love them, then I’ve labeled them and put them in a box. I’ve learned a lot about appreciating very diverse perspectives by doing this. God made each of us unlike any other. Embrace it and love it. Judgment is selfish. Love is selfless.

This crazy journey of self-discovery and taking myself (and others) out of boxes wasn’t about self-confidence or about feeding my pride. It’s helped me be OK with my imperfect self and open my eyes to God’s direction for my life.

I don’t have all of this figured out yet, not sure I ever will. But, what I do know is that I’m no longer jumping from box to box. I picture myself walking all over them – smashing the boxes and kicking them out of the way – and it’s sort of fun.