Perfect

I’m going to write this and maybe you’re not going to agree; maybe you'll think I'm crazy.

I’m giving up on self-improvement.

My whole (long, 24 year old life) has been about self-improvement.

And the result is a deep feeling of inadequacy, always lurking, haunting my every achievement and my every failure.

Maybe I’ve just misinterpreted all the messages. Maybe I’m misinterpreting messages now. Maybe I need to keep praying that prayer I’ve been praying since I can remember: “Dear Lord, I am so unworthy of your love. Please, heal my depraved soul; it is only through you that I am made whole. Wipe me clean of my horrendous iniquity.”

What horrendous iniquity? The iniquity of eating too much chocolate and not being the skinniest girl in yoga class? The iniquity of watching YouTube videos of cats instead of memorizing my next role? The iniquity of spending my money on a daily cup of coffee? The iniquity of not daily, actively seeking Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior? The iniquity of choosing a career that doesn’t directly feed the hungry or clothe the poor or save lives? The iniquity of discovering my bliss and doing that?

What if God created me perfect and the iniquity was only mine because that’s what I chose to create from what he gave me?

I will eat the chocolate; I will not be the skinniest. I am perfect.

I will watch YouTubes of cats and then I will pour my attention into my art when it needs me and my perfect self will learn the perfect process of my perfect art and it will just get more and more perfect.

I will have my coffee and be a local at my favorite coffee shop with my favorite hipsters and flirt with the kitchen manager and revel as often as possible in the joyful perfection that $1.90 can buy.

I will always remember my faith as a perfect pillar in my life journey, whatever it looks like now, whoever Jesus is to me now. And he will be perfectly who he should be to me yesterday, today and tomorrow.

I will pursue my perfect, self-tailored passion that doesn’t feed the hungry or clothe the poor. But maybe saves lives. Or moves them, or touches them. My song is a perfect gift and I will sing it perfectly, every chance I get. And every day, I will discover the bliss and the calling and the perfection of it all, wrapped up in my little, created self.

And by believing in my own perfection, maybe the world will see and believe too and there will be that much less darkness and fear because I am illuminated and brave and perfect.