If you know me, even the slightest bit, you know I have perfectionist tendencies. Some of you like to tell me I have a slight case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, though I do not… As my mother would say, “If you would only see her bedroom, you would no longer think she is obsessive-compulsive” haha.
Well, the race thus far has been far less than picture perfect. It has been exhausting – mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually exhausting. I can’t tell you the number of times I had sat down to write a blog, only to be unable to complete it. I have honestly felt like anything I had to say or share, was not worthy of being posted on a blog site. Why? Because it didn’t flow just right or I didn’t feel like I was able to paint an accurate picture with my words. I didn’t think what I had written was worth someone taking precious time out of their day to read, I felt like my “blogs” were too emotional or too deep and people would think I’m a little cray-cray, etc.
At the beginning of month two, Nicaragua, one of my teammates handed out Christmas tree decorations her students from home had made for us to decorate our tree with. Yes, month two was November, not Christmas time, but they had words of encouragement on them and she felt like we needed to have them as reminders for the month. She handed me mine and this is what it read,
For all of month two I wrestled with this thought, “Am I too much of a perfectionist?”
What I have come to is, yes, I am. I have so many thoughts, ideas, plans, etc. that I think would be wonderful to share with people but because they are not “just right,” I don’t. I stress myself out to unbelievable amounts. Seriously, I often make myself cry because I stress myself out so much over whether or not something is pretty enough for me to share with the world. I can’t even tell you the number of times in my life where I have stopped doing something or not even tried to do something I would love to do because I don’t think I’ll be good enough at it. In my mind, there has always been and always is someone who can do a better job out there, so they should be the one to do it.
Then it hit me, the Lord does not use the perfect. He uses the broken, the imperfect. Why? So He has the ability to show how truly wonderful, mighty and powerful He is. I am not suppose to be perfect, we are not suppose to be perfect, but we are suppose to abide in Him.
When I first began personally pursuing the Lord, I can’t even being to tell you the amount of anxiety and stress I had. Over the course of a few months, my family members began making comments about how I had changed. Nothing major, but little things here and there like the way I would act or react to a situation, how I would go about doing something or speaking to someone. I was able to live life differently because I was abiding in the Lord and He was constantly reminding me, “Do not fret,” “Do not be anxious,” “Trust in the Lord.”
I was able to trust the Lord and cast my worries on Him because He had brought me to Psalm 37. For almost the entire first year of my personal relationship with the Lord, He had me meditating on Psalm 37. Have you ever read it? If you have not, I would encourage you to go through and look at how many times it say do not be anxious in multiple different forms.
The race thus far, has been LOADS of stress and anxiety for me. I have prayed, cried, shut down, lashed out, internally processed, externally processed, had one-on-one conversations, sang songs, sat in silence, you name it I’ve probably tried it. Then the Lord began laying Psalms on my heart again, and I ignored it. Not specifically Psalm 37, just Psalms in general.
Over the course of my last couple of days in Nicaragua, our travel days between countries and my first day in Honduras, the Lord spoke to me in the way He usually does when I’m not paying attention to Him – repetition. He tapped my shoulder and repeated things multiple times, like a small child trying to get their mothers attention, until finally I turned and said, “What?” This time, He was trying to tell me the devil is trying to grasp onto the foothold of my anxiety and, so far, he’s been succeeding.
As I was talking with a teammate our first night in Honduras I said, “I know the devil attacks me though anxiety, because the Lord brought me to and had me meditate on Psalm 37 for almost an entire year. Lately, I know I have been feeling anxious all the time, I know I am being attacked.” But for some reason what I said aloud did not click in my human brain. Later that night, I was talking with my boyfriend, Andy, and he wanted to discuss Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Hello Kelsey, delight yourself in the Lord…Abide in Him..!
The desire of my heart has always been to help others. I stress out over my blogs because I don’t think they are going to be as helpful to others as the blogs I have read have been helpful to me. I stress out, I overwhelm myself – I…I…I. But the Lord desires the give us the desires of our hearts, He desires for us to cast our worries on Him, He desires for us to trust Him and when we take things into our own hands and stress out about them, we’re doing just the opposite of what He desires for us.
So, I owe all of you an apology. I am sorry for not allowing the Lord to have full control over my life and my words, for not allowing Him to use my life as His, for not allowing Him to use me to speak to whom ever He desire to reach though the words on this blog. I have, thus far, tried to walk through the race with a closed fist, trying to perfect every little thing before casting it out into the world for others to see, but that is not how I am supposed to live. What I am supposed to do is, “Commit my way to the Lord; trust Him, and He will act.” (Psalm 37:5, ESV)
With the aforementioned being stated, I hope y’all will bare with me over the course of these next nine months as I am choosing to commit this blog site to the Lord, trust Him and watch the ways in which He will act through my obedience. I am not sure how often He will give me something to say, what He will give me to say or how “pretty” the message will be, but I ask that you extend grace in my direction.
