Good Enough

 Having to actively fight the perfectionist side of myself while I take these three classes is a true battle. I want the A. Gosh darnit, I want the A+. More than that, I want to know without a shadow of a doubt that I have given something my absolute best effort. "Good enough" is a really hard phrase for me, it's always felt like a cop-out, a failure, an excuse. 

Today, after spending five straight hours without a break on homework, I felt myself looking for a reason to justify taking a break. I honestly didn't want to because I wanted to accomplish more but I also felt this little niggling in my body telling me my brain was getting tired. I had just read a whole chapter of Anatomy & Physiology, listened to and taken notes from a lecture from that same course, completed two labs and a homework set, completed a chem lab and done a quiz for Medical Terminology. 

But no…I needed more to justify stopping. To let myself breathe. I had taken a five minute break for lunch but had only noticed it was lunchtime because my hands started to shake with low sugar issues.

Yikes. 

I thought I had outgrown my need for everything to be complete and perfect, but clearly the old demons die hard. I texted my husband what was obviously a desperate plea to my inner voice to just let myself rest for a few and he, in his wisdom after 22 years of experiencing my special brand of insanity, came out of his office, looked me in the eye and said "I can tell you are trying to fight the guilt of taking a break. It's ok to rest." 

In that moment, I instantly had a flashback to high school me on the night before a math final. The phone rang and my mother picked it up. It was my math teacher, urging her to make me stop studying and take me out for ice cream because he knew I was ready but would probably spend the whole night buried in math equations if someone didn't force a little break on me. I remember arguing with her. I honestly don't remember who won. 

These same demons that crop up in pretty much everything I try to accomplish tend to taint my spiritual life as well. The concepts of grace, of unconditional love, of sacrifice for me…they feel foreign, almost wrong somehow. Rules are easier. Measurable. Grace is unmerited, unearned, unfathomable. A clear 10 step plan to being a good Christian? Bring it on. Just resting in His love- HOW IN THE WORLD DO I DO THAT? 

I’m not alone in this struggle, I know other friends who tend in the same direction. To earn, to strive, to find their worth in what is attainable. But I also know that it is never enough. The A feels good, but it doesn’t truly fill that ache. It never can. That ache to be perfectly content in who the Lord has made me to be as I walk with Him. 

I mentioned in a recent post that I have been leaning into new rhythms to try to open up that side of me that needs to be able to just rest, sit, learn, accept the love of God. 

A book called “Breath As Prayer” by Jennifer Tucker has been a literal Godsend. The whole idea of the book is that our breath, our very being, is found in the Lord. So as we physically breathe, we use words straight from scripture to calm our minds even as the breathing calms our body. It’s rooted in both science and the Word (swoon!) and the author puts it like this: 

“Breath prayer can help calm your anxiety by connecting you to your Creator and aligning your breath to the rhythm of His grace. Anxiety makes us focus on ourselves and our feelings and the discomfort that those feelings and emotions are causing us. In breath prayer, we reorient our thoughts toward Christ and He becomes the center of our focus, not our feelings.”  

Tomorrow, I’ll need to study again. I have a test coming up. I can already feel my body ramping up…flashcards to be created and studied, careful reading through my notes, working through the study sheets. It will be easy to overwhelm myself with the stress of striving for that A+. Old habits die hard, after all. It will be hard to shut off that inner voice that says "try harder, work longer, you are not doing enough". That voice is loud and powerful, after all.

But, I’m heading into it with this prayer from the book in mind: 

It's not magic and it's not perfect. But even taking tiny steps to learn to pause, to feel the heart racing with the need to achieve, to earn...and to then learn to pause, feel it and inhale and exhale truth and literal, life-giving oxygen, is huge.

Not easy, but huge.

And maybe, in that breathing, I'll be able to realize that what I have accomplished is good enough. That the Lord is pleased. That I can stop. That I can rest. Because who I am is NOT rooted in what I was able to do that day.