Love Simplified

I'm a perfectionist. It's my job, as a perfectionist, to make life more complicated than it needs to be. When I make a grocery list, if I make a mistake or it looks sloppy, I crumple it up, throw it away and start over. When we go out with friends, if I say something embarrassing, it casts a shadow over the entire evening. My journals are empty from page two on because of some tiny error in entry number one. A perfectionist is usually in constant inner turmoil precisely because there is a HUGE gap between what the perfectionist hopes to be and what she actually is--an imperfect person.

This inner turmoil knows no bounds. It extends to all areas of life--including love. Love, like the rest of life, is complicated for the perfectionist. Perhaps because it is here, in this area of love, that the perfectionist really, really wants to soar. She wants to give love perfectly, but she fails and sometimes, devastatingly so. Oh, how I fail! It's one thing to throw out your grocery list when you've spelled "Doritos" incorrectly, but what do you do with a relationship when you've misspelled "love" over and over again, when sin and selfishness stain. How do you start again?

And of all the people the perfectionist struggles to love, it is herself that she loves least of all--if at all. She can't see past the failure for the schism between expectation and reality is far too wide and unforgivable. Furthermore, since she barely likes herself, she finds it almost impossible to believe that anyone else would like--let alone--love her (and if they do, then they must not really know her).

Dark thoughts on a Valentine's Day. Yet, these were my thoughts yesterday as I stumbled, snapped, and snarled my way through the day. At the end of the day, I was waving the white flag of surrender, ready to pull the covers up over my head with this mantra echoing across the empty places: "I can't do it. It's too complicated. I give up." But a sister called. She listened as I spewed forth all that had suffocated, stifled, and sent me spiraling down all day long. She offered the kind of encouragement that most perfectionists and self-loathers shrug off as misinformed, but I listened. I listened and looked amidst the lies, all those thoughts that I had believed all day long and most of my life, for the tiniest bit of truth. At the core of all those lies, was a half-truth: I am not perfect. True. I am not perfect.

The problem is that I have taken that truth and attached all sorts of lies to it--all kinds of misaligned effects with this one cause: my imperfection. I'm not perfect, and therefore, unlovable. I'm not perfect, and therefore, my children will have serious struggles and need serious therapy. I'm not perfect, and my husband will eventually get tired of putting up with me. I am not perfect, and therefore, I'll disappoint my friends, so it's better not to have any. I am not perfect, and therefore, I cannot be happy.

These half-truths sound a little ridiculous when written out, but inside my head and heart, they are subtle slingers of guilt, despair, self-condemnation, and pain. Sometimes it takes a long time to dismantle the lies that we've believed--especially those ingrained from birth. Regardless of how long it takes, the first step is always to recognize the lie and begin to put truth into its place. We can't always do that alone; we may need sisters, prayer ministers, friends, parents, spouses to help us see our way clearly to a very uncomplicated and simple truth. Yesterday, on a pretty messed-up Valentine's Day, God gave me a glimpse of the Valentine's message He'd like to send me. It's pretty simple: You are not perfect, and I love you.

But God demonstrates His love for us in this:

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8