I work out using those online instructional videos. The woman who makes the ones I use is named Cassie, and she’s an explosion of encouraging pep that is sometimes inspirational and other times incredibly annoying. I’ve never seen someone smile so much, and if you know me at all, that’s saying something. A catchphrase of hers that she rattles off at lot in the middle of a high plank or a set of crunches is: “With every move we’re getting better. We’re getting stronger. We’re better today than we were yesterday!”
I want to be better today than I was yesterday. I want to be stronger and kinder and more in tune with myself. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think I’m chasing smoke. As I’ve been trying to write this blog post, I’ve watched a proposal video, scanned social media, and read an excerpt from a novel online. It’s taken me thirty minutes to get to this sentence right here. And those distractions alone have made me realize something:
There’s no way I’m getting better. And I desperately want to get better.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve realized that I’m deeply imperfect. My imperfections stare me right back in the mirror every morning, but today they feel less abstract, less in the back of my head. I go to bed most nights with most of my to-do list undone. I wake up most mornings with worry prickling me awake. My past failures claw at me, trying to pull me into the dark where they lurk. And most of the time, their attacks work. Today they feel like they’ve perched on my shoulders the way cartoon angels and devils do.
My boyfriend pointed out the other day that the theme that strings together all the blogs I’ve written so far is a desire to improve myself. It’s me saying, “I found this thing that I’m not good at, and I want to be better at it. And I thought that I might not be the only one feeling this way.” And that’s true, and that’s great. Self-improvement is important and a good goal to strive for.
But maybe what I want is not to feel that I am better. Maybe what I want is to feel whole.
I’m realizing that there will always be something for me to be better at. I think about that a lot, this idea that I’m never going to be the person that I want to be. That’s not a depressing thing to say or to write. The person I want to be is so perfect. She never forgets a birthday. She is always available. She is always a clear communicator 100% of the time; she reads and retains everything her eyes land on, she writes without distraction from Youtube or music or Pinterest. She doesn’t shout. She doesn’t sob into her pillow on the hard days; her emotions are in control. She doesn’t let herself or anyone else in her life down. And she always, always remembers to write her blog posts every two weeks.
John Steinbeck, one of the resident authors in my brain, mutters a gentle reminder that has been sticky-tacked onto my memory: “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” Another Jon, Jon Bellion, sits at a piano and sings the first line of one of his new songs: “What if who I hoped to be was always me?” And a third John, writing a letter to his brothers and sisters in the early church and also to me, picks up his pen and emblazons these words on my perfectionist heart: “For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” (1 John 3:20)
I don’t have to be perfect. I can be me. Living rightly is a quest that I will never finish, but one that I will always work towards. And living rightly and being “better” are two very different battles. My job as a Christian woman is not to overcome my shortcomings and my faults and my sins. Those are debts that have already been paid off. Jesus freed me from those responsibilities when I accepted him into my life, when he adopted me into his family. My sights should be set on becoming more like Jesus, a journey in which being a better person is a by-product. He called me good before I ever tried to improve myself, and he calls me good now. He’s teaching me every day about how to love better and live better and be more like him.
Friends, we are living in flux. We are works in progress, manuscripts that are always being edited, and we are never going to be finished on this earth. And that’s a freeing thought, because we have permission to mess up and fall down and let others down and let ourselves down. Those experiences, painful as they may be, allow the typos and mistakes and ugliness in us to float to the top, that we may finally turn to Jesus and ask, “Please, please take this from me. I don’t want this in me anymore.” Little by little, he begins to skim those things off the top, and we can walk onward. Those are the ways we learn to exhibit forgiveness, grace, honesty, and love.
I am trying to make my prayers less of, “Jesus, make me better,” and more of, “Jesus, make me more like you.” Shake off your shackles, and I’ll shake off mine too. Now that you don’t have to be better, you can be free.
This post was largely inspired by "Better Man" by Judah and the Lion. Check it out in the video below. It's also on my Vidi Spotify playlist, where I've compiled all of my Current Jams. Click on the Spotify icon to check it out!
Photo by Carl Kraines, 2018
Works Cited
Bellion, Jon. "Stupid Deep." Glory Sound Prep, Capitol Records, 2018, track 4. Spotify, open.spotify.com/track/7cK7hDrE7vAesPf8xd5zmb?si=0vrfPzwwTTKuuyR6qtf0Zw.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Crossway, 2001.
Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. Penguin Books, 2017.