Of Imperfections

Once again, it has been WAYYYY too long since I've posted. A lot has happened in my life in the beginning of this new year and I feel like anyone that reads this should know about it, so I'm sorry it took me so long.



My new year started kinda rough. To be quite concise, I was extremely unhappy with life. The craziest part is that only the people who are ridiculously close to me had an idea that something was wrong. Basically, what was going on is something that's been building up inside of me for 3 years. Three years is actually 1/5th of my life....so I consider it all to be quite significant. ;)



OK, so when I was in 8th grade, all of the sudden I had a heavy work load. The classes I was taking were very time consuming, more was expected of me, etc, etc. PLUS add to that the fact that I decided to memorize the entire text in Bible Bowl that year. The text was the Gospel of John, 1st, 2nd and 3rd John and 1st and 2nd Peter. BUT I was very determined....ridiculously determined. Within the first month of competition I was behind. We had to learn John 1-6 before the first round robin and I remember sitting there on my bed crying because it was a couple days from competition and I was only halfway through chapter 6. It was actually the longest chapter in our text that year and very daunting. So I didn't have all of it memorized by our local round robin that Saturday. Well then the next month I not only had several NEW chapters, but catching up on the previous month PLUS catching up on the school I had gotten behind in. Well this started a CRAZY chain reaction and cycle down. By Christmas of '07 I had been sick for a couple months straight, was wayyyyy behind on Bible Bowl, wayyyyyy behind on school and absolutely exhausted. It was a big load for a 13 year old girl to bear.



Basically somewhere mid-second-semester I realized all this craziness had to stop...I was absolutely worn out and burnt out. So, I did what a LOT of burnt out Bible Bowlers do and I stopped completely. Yes, I was still on the team. Yes, I went to practice twice a week. Yes, I went to tournaments that Spring and Summer. Yes, I was at my church every time the doors were open. But was I actually there? Was I playing my role and fulfilling my commitment to the team? Was I doing well at school? Was I growing at church and spending time with my friends? Absolutely not.



It drove me mad. I was stubborn. I was a control-freak. I begged my parents to let me quit some of the extra-curricular stuff I was doing (i.e music lessons and karate) but they didn't let me. (Now I really do thank them for making me keep doing them, by the way.) I thought if I could get control of this thing and tackle it with all the gusto I had, that it would go away and I would be proud of myself and life would be so good. But I really struggled.



In reflection, I have been significantly behind in school and/or Bible Bowl for the entirety of 3 years. I've started fresh with no work to make up for when each school year starts, but one way or another I've gotten behind. It's not my parent's fault or the curriculum's fault for being too heavy of a work-load. But that is what I kept blaming it for being. It started in 8th grade and has been spinning out of control ever since.



I am naturally a perfectionist. I set very high goals and have worked very hard to achieve them. I am extremely independent and controlling, not necessarily of other people but of my own affairs. I am insanely prideful and love to be the best. I want my life to have purpose and look back and be absolutely satisfied that I used every moment I humanly could have. So I spent all this time trying to get myself together and fix things but I kept falling down again and again and AGAIN and AGAIN.



Something very scary happens when a perfectionist fails. They get so upset that they failed that they try again and push everyone who wants to help out of the way. They try again and have no support and fail again. Now they have even more stuff to deal with and fix. The more they try the more they fail. The HARDER they fall, the MADDER they get. The HARDER they try, the more prideful they become. The more prideful they become, the harder they fall yet again. But they are so determined to fix all of the messes on their own that they keep going in this vicious, ugly cycle.



So I guess right now I'm confessing something to you: I've been spending 3 years throwing myself deeper and deeper into this cycle....but keep in mind almost NO ONE had a clue. I had legitimate bouts of depression because basically: when you have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it, and you want to do it really really well but you have in the back of your mind all the times you failed, all you're gonna do is fail even more. That made me start to attack who I am and a whole bunch of amazing people in my life.



I spent a lot of time just saying I'm fine. I was still experiencing the ups and downs of the Christian experience, but there was always something going on underneath...something deeper than most people could see in my life. Don't get me wrong: I wasn't a monster that everyone was afraid of for 3 years. IN FACT, I HAVE SOMETHING THAT I'M REALLY RELUCTANT TO ADMIT: There are a BUNCH of people in my life who kept telling me how perfect I was! And I was sitting back thinking about who I am and kinda cringing inside.



So I was kind of like Hannah Montana: There was a girl that everyone saw that seemed to have everything quite together, and who loved to write, who gave advice to people ALL the time, who was at church all time and getting closer and closer to friends, and who was constantly striving to have a better relationship with God. But lurking in the shadows was the other Kayla: Constantly upset with who I am physically, spiritually, and relationally, falling through the cracks, getting depressed from time to time, really ticked with myself at the choices I made and secretly quite upset that no one noticed.



Something that was really confusing is that every so often we would go on a retreat...and I would genuinely be moved...I would feel God say something to me and I would actually act upon this conviction. I was really really happy for a while and I was determined not to let that status change. But just like they always warned us, I would go home and things WOULD go back to normal. This made my perfectionist self even MORE frustrated, because *I* wanted to keep changing my life. (Do you know yet where my story is going?)



2009 saw everything get worse and worse. I got more and more bitter because of situations that came up in my life. I got further and further behind on school. I completely STOPPED trying with Bible Bowl this season because way back in 8th grade I lost that drive because of over-working. Then when I wouldn't do well each month, I was yet MORE upset at my imperfections. I had the worst little bout of depression in October of 2009...I didn't want to talk to anyone anymore...I was really really lonely....I attacked myself mentally all the time and it was exhausting. My thoughts took me to very dark places....yada yada yada. I look back at that period and grit my teeth. All I can really say without boring you to death is that I was warped and lonely and disillusioned and it took some beautiful caring people in my life to help yank me out of that. But my problem was still not solved....



FINALLY just now in the beginning of 2010 something finally changed. I decided it was time to post something here on my blog about my regrets and my failures and imperfections. So I got on and wrote for hours and hours about basically everything I've just told you, but actually believe it or not in greater detail. As I was sitting here writing I had a bunch of thoughts going through my head. Some of them were, "Why are you posting this? No one wants to read about all the times you've screwed up. Then again, you HAVE to post it and suck up your failures. Part of getting over your perfectionism is making yourself vulnerable. But if you post this, everyone will see all your flaws and look at you different and will no longer think that you're the perfect girl they want to be like."



I just kept writing and kept writing....but I was getting more and more nauseous. It was all really starting to bother me and I didn't know whether I should post it or not. So I saved it as a draft and went to bed. I had been in a habit of praying before I fell asleep every night but that night I deliberately chose not to talk to God. I was soooooooo mad at myself and so sick of the way my life had been for so long that I just shut everything out. I really hate to admit it, but I was so low in that moment that I went beyond questioning God and actually yelled at Him. My disillusioned mind was making everything I thought warped and sinful. I have NEVER been so low. I've been depressed before and felt really helpless and hopeless but my mind was constantly on my need for God to help my out of that pit. But in that moment that night, I blocked God's love out of my mind and all the amazing experiences I'd had and my faith and redemption and all these beautiful things. My religion was so focused around myself.....and I had absolutely no clue.....so when I failed and destroyed perfection I blamed it on God. Even though I was claiming over and over again that I was surrendering to Him, I don't know if I truly was. All I could think about was my failures.



So I went to sleep numb and yet very raw. I was a mess, and not in the cutesy-Southern way. I woke up on Sunday morning even worse. FURIOUS at myself and God and my family and everything, I laid there churning over more and more things. I blamed God for me never being able to get things right. So in essence, I blamed God for not making it possible for *me* to redeem myself.



All of the sudden, I FINALLY reached my breaking point. I broke down FINALLY and sobbed and cried and wondered why. Then in my mind I said, "I absolutely CAN. NOT. DO THIS ANYMORE." All at once 3 years of hard work, pain, failure, complacency, pride, and facade were made completely obvious to me. I have never felt so disgusting. It was nauseating, once again. I sat there and held my breath and wondered what I was supposed to do and kind of in a daze. Finally I was like, "oh, ummm.....I think I should pray..." (as you can see, I was at a loss for just about everything).



That prayer is between me and God, but I got cleansed. It was like living Amazing Grace. As I prayed and talked to God we made everything right that had been wrong for 3 years and I was so calm and so confident that something right was finally going on. God clearly welcomed me back home...I actually am 100% convinced that He did some things just for me. As I was praying I had my Zune playing in the background, just on shuffle. I kid you not, RIGHT as I started confessing a bunch of stuff to God and pleading for forgiveness, the song "Come Home Running" by Chris Tomlin came on and I bawled. Here's the lyrics to that song:



O Heart of Mine, why must you stray?

From One so fair, you've run away

And one more time you have to pay

the heaviness of needless shame

O Heart of Mine, come back home
you've been too long out on your own
and He's been there all along
Watching for you down the road

So come home running, His arms are open wide
His name is Jesus and He understands
He is the answer, that you are looking for
So come home running, just as you are

O Child of God So Dearly Loved
And ransomed by the Savior's Love
And called by name, Daughter and Son
Wrapped in the robe of righteousness



Umm ok, so I think needless to say I was bawling. I spent a while longer praying and thanking God for forgiving me and pretty soon after that went to church. Let's just say before the pastor even got up to speak my heart was POUNDING. They played a video before the sermon that was absolutely perfect for me. Then he got up and every moment of his sermon my heart was pounding. I didn't know exactly what I should do but I was trying to sit still and wait for God. His sermon was about burdens that we HAVE to surrender to God. He taught about David and Bathsheeba and how it was during that situation that David was called a man after God's own hear because of his broken spirit. The sermon ended, the invitation started, and suddenly I was standing there on my tip-toes whispering in Bill's ear. The lights blinded my eyes and I could feel every eye in the room staring at us....and I rededicated my life to God. I came home.

OK, I REALLY need to stop now....but I HAD to get what's been going on out there in the open. Stay tuned for a post on what's happened since then, because God has not slowed down to this moment in redeeming me.

It's a very, VERY scary thing when a person tries to be their own God.