Week Three: A Perfect Mess

Wow! If there was a chapter that has ever hit me square between the eyes... it was this one. Chapter Three: Tumbling Toward Approval, was indeed a chapter this weary soul needed to read. And will need to keep reading in the future I'm sure of it!

This week our Psalm focus was Psalm 139... and how it describes the way God sees the beauty behind our blemishes. I love the quote she highlights at the beginning of the chapter... "Unfortunately, often our faith doesn't penetrate to our unfavorable feelings about ourselves." - Marva Dawn.

And isn't that true? We know we serve a God who loves... we know the scriptures are clear about the way He loves and we tend to believe it with our whole hearts yet its often hard to accept the personal application to our lives. We struggle with the hard questions like "I know God loves me, but how can He love me intimately?" and "How can God love me after the messes I've made?" These are questions I know I have wrestled with in my own life. And more often than I'd care to admit.

My personal struggle isn't that I don't see how God could love me intimately or even after the messes I've made (and I have had my FAIR SHARE of mess-ups in my life). My struggle seems to be with the expectations I put on myself. The expectations to be perfect. I seem to struggle with the person I am and the person I know God has called me to be. It's the gap between that seems to be my biggest weakness. This hole leaves room for doubt. I place so many expectations on myself that when I fail at any of these I feel as though I've disappointed more than just me. I feel as though I have let others down and fear that God will be displeased with me as well.

I hope I'm not alone in this struggle.

On page 43, Lisa says, "It's easy to fall prey to the feel-good addiction of other people's approval." But she continues, "life-by-scorecard is exhausting."

I've been there before. Saying yes to anything I was asked to do just to be accepted and respected. Always trying to outdo my last big thing so that others would take notice and perhaps like me more. And so much of these feelings stem back to our youth, don't they? If you're like me, you spent years trying to make your daddy proud of you. Maybe this manifested itself in negative ways - like acting out to get his attention. Perhaps we had a mom who demanded excellence from us leaving us feeling as though we could never quite measure up to her expectations. Maybe your parents expected all A's from you on your report card, so when you brought home that C+ in Biology your Junior year of High School, they're disappointment in you was almost unbearable. Maybe it's a boss you've always worked so hard for or a husband you're always striving hard to please. But chances are - at some point in your life you've struggled with gaining approval of others. In one way, shape or form, you've wrestled between the excellence factor and the label of perfection.

Lisa begins the introduction of Psalms 139 on page 44 with these words, "On those days - or weeks! - when we feel like we don't measure up, like our lives are one long blooper reel, we can find hope in what King David wrote in Psalm 139: 'O Lord, You have searched me and you know me.' (Psalm 139:1)"

We continue on with more of that same Psalm, "You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord." (Psalm 139:2-4).

Ladies - God KNOWS us. He knows our thoughts. He knows our ways. He knows us completely and intimately. And I don't know about you - but that is reason enough to SHOUT with joy!

Lisa says on page 45, "He doesn't merely deliver me, but wholeheartedly delights in me." Amen!!

I had a recent experience with my daughter that left this mama reeling with emotions. Chloe is 11 and she is really struggling in her sixth grade year! I have to admit that I saw it coming. I remember my sixth grade year and I can honestly tell you that it was the worst year of my entire school career. But Chloe has always LOVED school... so it's been completely out of character for her to come home in tears day after day expressing her sincere detest for school. It's gut-wrenching to see her precious face marked by sadness when just last year she craved school on a daily basis.

One evening as I was on my way to bed, I heard some whimpering coming from Chloe's room. My first thought was that she didn't feel well, but upon further investigation I discovered it was, once again, tears of sadness at the mere thought of facing another day of school.

We spent some time talking about "so-called friends" who had changed and no longer hung out with her. We talked about bullying and how hard it was to stand by and be a witness to sixth grade injustice. And I tried like any good mom to reassure her that these times, they would soon pass. That these kids, they all still liked her and furthermore were probably going through the same emotions as her. That these experiences, were something each of us had to go through. I tried to explain that God calls us to go THROUGH these difficult situations, and not just "in" to them, expressing to her that there would indeed to a light at the end of the tunnel. But as hard as I tried to explain away these frustrations, the more I realized all she really needed was a mama who listened. All she really needed was for me to "know her" and "love her" intimately enough to not allow her to be alone in her misery. So - - I crawled right up beside her in her bed and with my arms wrapped snug around her... I cried with her.

I knew no other way to comfort her soul... but my prayer was that my presence with her on that Sunday night, would be felt by her years later as she recalled the difficulty enduring sixth grade.

And oh that's so much like our Heavenly Father! On page 47 I find Lisa's words so comforting, "On our worst days, when we're trying to hide our misery or conceal our failures, our perfect God doesn't stand at a distance, waiting for us to pull ourselves together. He crawls right in beside us, amid the dust bunnies and clutter of our lives, to show that we're never alone in our messes." She continues, "No matter where we go, no matter what we do, God is with us. His holy hands won't let go of us."

He crawls right in beside us! What wonderful imagery!

Psalm 139:13-14 says, "For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well."

Ladies... WE are fearfully and wonderfully made! And more reassurance comes from the pages of 48 & 49, "Before your biological dad ever made the first pass at your birth mom, God knew there would be a YOU. He planned your first breath long before your mama's obstetrician smacked you on your bare bottom. God fashioned every cell, sculpted each bone, and painted the color of your eyes and skin. Then He stepped back and said, 'Isn't she lovely?'"

Isn't she lovely?? (You've got that Stevie Wonder song stuck in your head now, don't you? ;)

You see - there is no one we should aim to please more than our Heavenly Father. He adores us. We are His craftsmanship and His prized possessions. He longs for us to spend our lives concerned only with what He has to say to us and about us.

"God's love frees us from performing so we can relax and rejoice with the assurance that He knows us completely and adores us just as we are." (Page 53).

At the end of my life I long to hear the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant." And really... that is all that really matters.

Thank you for continuing on this journey with us through A Perfect Mess. I trust that God is working on your heart as you seek to please Him!

Finding JOY in the JOurneY,



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