Life is messy.
Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes our loved ones make mistakes. Sometimes others hurt us, and sometimes we hurt others.
Sometimes things we want to happen, don’t. Sometimes things we guarded against and protected against and insured ourselves against, do happen.
Many of us want to think we can protect ourselves against the messiness of life. We think we can insure our own proper place and can anesthetize ourselves a bit from the pain of the unpredictability of it all.
I’m guilty as charged. And I guess it makes sense because in most ways I’m about as messy as they come.
I’m late a lot. I can be disorganized. I say the wrong things. I share way too much with way too many people. I have faulty filters. I’m too loud. I’m insecure. My feelings can feel too very big to fit in this stratosphere sometimes.
I can’t get my mind to accept the beliefs I want to believe, and I can’t get my brain to be satisfied with any answers. I insist on looking at the other side, both to my detriment and to the detriment of the sanity of those around me. I’m usually chaotic. I lose my patience too much. I’m truly, truly awful at keeping things calm and orderly.
I’ve always known this about myself. I’ve never quite felt like I fit into the pattern I was supposed to. When I was younger, I thought I had found the perfect solution: make no mistakes. If I made no mistakes, I would have nothing to worry about or be anxious about.
Man, did I try hard at that. I knew I was working hard, and I knew that I really, desperately wanted to be perfect, so any lack of perfection was a sign that I didn’t overanalyze and predict well enough. I wasn’t diligent enough.
And so I tried harder.
I never really questioned this tendency until I was in my mid-twenties and I heard myself saying the following words to a therapist: “If I just never make a mistake, then I will never be anxious again. I just need to try harder.” I didn’t say those words ironically. I didn’t say them in anything less than absolute earnestness. Yet I saw the grin come across his face, and I started to feel one spread across mine as well.
Perhaps perfection really wasn’t the answer.
I started a new Walking with Purpose Bible Study last night. In the first video, Lisa Brenninkmeyer was discussing authenticity. She mentions how we all need to deal with the messiness and grittiness of life. She explained three main ways in which people generally do this, three masks they put on.
- The I don’t Care Mask
- The Perfection Mask
- The I’m Fine Mask.
We wear these masks in order to protect ourselves from the judgment of those we are in relationship with. I also think we tend to wear them to protect ourselves from our own judgment. We can use them to build a fortress around our hearts to protect ourselves inside from all there is to fear on the outside.
I bring these masks to you today to admit that I wear them all at different times. And I also bring them here to you today to remind you that sometimes you can let them down. Sometimes you can be real with people. Sometimes you can admit that it’s all so very hard and you don’t have to have it all together all the time.
Sometimes it’s okay to cry. Sometimes it’s okay to yell. Sometimes it’s okay to know none of the answers or to even know where to ask the questions.
We were made imperfect. It’s our destiny as human beings to make mistakes. And you are no exception. And through it all, through all the bad choices and missteps and awkward conversations, you are enough.
You are okay.
You are loved.
And when you have a hard time believing that, remember what I told Mae one day a few years ago. God thought you up. He created this idea in his head of exactly who you are. He knew all your strengths and all of your weaknesses, and he said, “this is good. I want her for myself.” She is worth it all to me.
Rest in that, revel in that, and then go out and live your messy, beautiful, imperfect life.
And share it with me. Because I like messy people.