I always strive to do my best. It used to show up this way in school with my classwork, projects, essays, and homework. I was motivated to give my all. That doesn’t sound unhealthy, does it? I don’t think so. Of course, I wanted a good grade but I also wanted to be proud of what I accomplished.
I used to joke about being a perfectionist but now I see the negative impact that has caused in my life. Especially because perfectionism is typically coupled with comparison.
Now that I don’t receive grades for an objective critique of my work, I go to subjectively comparing my work to others’. Comparing my work to other people’s never was an issue before when I’d get my validation from a teacher that said my work was A+ material. I’ve been subjectively judging my work against others which I now realize has had a very negative effect on the way I view myself and my worth.
Nowadays, it shows up in not giving myself enough grace.
While painting a mural last month in Cambodia, God showed me in a small way how I had been viewing things in my life.
I was painting the rainbow and sky in the depiction of Noah’s ark on the side of the church building that is also used as a school. I kept on making little careless mistakes and looking over at my teammates’ work. I thought, “wow what they’re doing looks so much harder than what I’m doing yet I can’t even do my job well.” I was focusing so hard on making everything look perfect and belittling myself when it didn’t pass my standard. I also had this mindset that if I didn’t like my work then my whole team would think its bad too and be secretly upset at me for ruining the mural. And when they complimented me on my work, I didn’t believe them because I was so convinced it was awful. My mind was a battlefield those couple days.
But when I literally took a step back from the mural to check the (literal) bigger picture I noticed that the tiny details and “mistakes” that I had made were barely noticeable. I was only focused on them because my face was literally inches away from the wall and I had been working on the same thing for a long time. What I had seen as ugly mistakes, now just added character and humanness to the art piece. With a mural that size, people that pass by won’t be critiquing it but enjoying it. It wasn’t perfect, sure, but that’s okay! Nothing is going to be perfect made by human hands.
When I realized this, relief came and wrapped my little shell of a person and reminded me I was only human and that there is grace available for me.
In life we can do the same thing that I was doing with this mural. We can look too close and too long at something and forget the big picture. We can take something that really is manageable and make it into something overwhelming. This produces inward turmoil like self-consciousness and self-hatred, self-esteem and self-worth issues, or as outward symptoms towards others like irritability and rage.
Don’t allow issues or problems in your life to take center stage when your focus should always be on God and the big picture. Take a moment and breathe; step back from the situation and give yourself or the other person grace. Remember that you are human AND you are loved. Pray and ask Jesus for a renewed mind and clear vision to see the situation how He sees it from Heaven. Ask for wisdom and like Solomon, He will give it to you. Let others speak into your situation.
P.S. A sincere thank you from Team Themelios to those of my friends who donated to the cost of this project! How cool that there is a mural brightening up a little corner of Cambodia now all because you selflessly gave of your resources?! This was the epitome of a team effort!
