Perfectionist "Unglued"

“the emotional demands keep on coming. Unrelenting insecurity. Wondering if anyone appreciates me. Feeling tired, stressed, hormonal.

Feeling unglued is really all I’ve ever known. And I’m starting to wonder if maybe it’s all I’ll ever be.

What kept me from making changes was the feeling that I wouldn’t do it perfectly. I knew I’d still mess up and the changes wouldn’t come instantly.

There is a beautiful reality called imperfect progress.

Imperfect changes are slow steps of progress wrapped in grace…..imperfect progress.

Progress. Just make progress. It’s okay to have setbacks and the need for do-overs. It’s okay to draw a line in the sand and start over again-and again. Just make sure you’re moving the line forward. Move forward. Take baby steps, but at least take steps that keep you from being stuck. Then change will come. And it will be good.

These honest words enabled me to begin rewriting my story. Not that I erased what came before, but I stopped rehashing it and turned the page afresh.”

These are just a few lines from two pages of Lysa TerKeurst’s newest book “Unglued.”  Wow, what a powerful punch these words provide. Imagine reading the entire book.  That is what a group of over 15,000 people are doing with Melissa Taylor’s Online Bible Study (www.melissataylor.org) we have just read the first two chapters so far and I have already received so much from the book, the leaders and the other ladies in my small group on Facebook.

I mean let’s face it, life is hard on its best day, for someone who was raised as a perfectionist and that good, is not good enough, life, at times, just seems impossible.   I mean how are we to hold everything together with all the expectations not only others put on us but that we put on ourselves.  We are made to feel as if we should be superwoman all the time and if not, then we are not good enough.

I kept thinking I was doing well learning how to be a better person and how to handle things better but I still was fighting spiritual warfare, still coming unglued way too often.  I knew it was in my thought process but I couldn’t figure out the steps to take to fix it.  Well Lysa gave me those steps.  Every thought that comes in my mind, each individual one, I just stop and ask if it is a positive or a negative thought.  If it is positive, yay for me & God, if it is a negative thought then I try to find a way to correct it to make it a positive thought.  One major thought I had as I was reading the first two chapters was “where was this during the first 20 years of my marriage and when my only child, an eighteen year old daughter was growing up.” I then realized, God put this in my life now, for such a time as this.  Why I didn’t learn this before, I don’t know but He will let me know in His perfect time. For now, I am to continue focusing on God, this book, and being a better person today than I was yesterday. Does that mean I have it all figured out, not even close, but I am making progress, imperfect, slow, progress and for me, the perfectionist, it says a lot about who you can become when you allow God to work.