Perfection

I want to be perfect, but I am so very not. When someone tells me something good about myself, I latch onto it like it's a floatie in the deep end. But I have to act like it's not a big deal, or it's not true, because that's humility, right?... I'm working on saying thank you and just leaving it at that. When someone points out that I'm not perfect, I get defensive or try to validate it... or boldly say, "Yeah, I do that. It's not good," and continue to do whatever that thing is and think look at me, I'm awesome... I'm open and honest. Barf.

Today my boss, who I haven't really talked to in a few weeks (we used to have weekly 4 hour meetings) dropped by and told me all the the things that our store needed to work on. This is ok. Someone had to say it. But when I'm dealing with so much stuff, little details don't get taken care of. I feel overwhelmed. I do 17 things at one time, and this doesn't work well, if you didn't know. We got busy today, someone called in sick, I helped customers from 9:30 until 1:30, I was so hungry I could have puked my coffee. I nearly peed myself. Anyway, it drained me to hear the list of things I needed to do better from my boss. I got slightly defensive, of course. But my boss knows I do that and he just smiled at me. I went to yoga thinking I might cry at any moment.

But I didn't, until I came home and read Denise's blog.

It was a good cry. Obviously, you can see from this post I am self-absorbed and I think the details of my life are very important and that I work harder than most people. I was looking for ways to be perfect, ease my stress, feel better about myself, to feel awesome again, and to make people see that I am awesome and always make the right decisions because I'm 24 and my frontal lobes are completely developed... and then I read one of Denise's posts, where she said this -

"What a lifetime of trying could not do, God has begun to do for me by stripping away all my security, my dignity, and all my hope in anything or anyone that is not himself.  I have been humbled and humiliated, scorned, manipulated and violently rejected.  But I have grown.  I have known Jesus better.  I have rested in the work of Christ.  Do I want to suffer?  Am I happy that I have had to suffer in this way? (hmm - trick question?)  No.  This sin, this terrible, terrible thing that has happened to us - it's not the way its supposed to be.  But, God will redeem what he is pleased to redeem."