Fearfully And Wonderfully Made, Me.

Y’all this one is going to get deep, just warning you!

So much for me blogging more since I am no longer working!  HA!  I would love to say I was super busy, but I was not super busy, just super sick with some kind of cold junk I like to call “Calvary Staff infection”!  Even though it was my first official week not working I caught what the rest of the staff was passing around at work!  Lucky me!!

I did however feel well enough to attend our annual Amen Girlfriend weekend women's retreat and it was a blast!  I took my camera, but did not snap one single picture…go figure!  Our weekend was called “It’s A Grande Life” and there was lots of coffee and I, along with a great friend Sherry, were the official baristas!  We made everything you could imagine from mocha frappuccinos, caramel lattes,  hot chocolate to plain old black coffee!  If the break out sessions and speakers did get you fired up and moving, the caffeine did!!  HA!! 

There was one speaker this weekend that ultimately touch me with every word out of her mouth.  It was one of those things that you walk away saying to yourself, I was meant to be there to hear that!  Her name was Erin Earnest and she spoke at our retreat for the first time, ever.  She spoke about something that we all do, striving to be perfect.  Trying to make everyone happy and saying yes to everything just so you are accepted, liked, loved, or whatever word that you could put in there.  Always chasing the super model image and striving to be perfect. 

I’ve been there, I have tried to be the perfect wife, mother, friend…daughter.  I have failed in each category, at epic proportions.  I have not only failed in those areas, but I will not forgive myself for not being 100%.  At the end of the day, most do not hold me to the 100% that I hold myself too.  They do not even realize that I have not lived up to the “unachievable goals” that I have set for myself and accept me for the one they love.  Of course, there are others that have not only hired the lawyer to convict me, but they have paid off the judge and jury to make sure that I pay dearly for letting them down.

The terrible part in all of the above is I will not forgive myself for being a failure in areas of my life.  I have hit the all time low of actually having panic attacks in public places.  There I said it…I am having panic attacks, talk about not being perfect!  I am having trouble going into areas where there are people and being afraid to the point that I had two panic attacks this week alone.  The most recent one was yesterday morning in a gas station!!  Of all places to wig out, I did it at a gas station.  I started my day off pretty much on the wrong foot and almost turned around and went home.  BUT, I was the barista at a very important event, a women’s retreat, so not to disappoint anyone, I cried all the way to church.

Erin said something so important (YESTERDAY) (Glad I didn’t go home) that really is hitting me hard.  You know, one of those things that keeps creeping up in your mind and no matter how hard you try to ignore it and try to continue to wallow in your despair, you can’t?  This is what she said…totally paraphrasing, because no matter how I will try to say it the way she did, I wont be be able to…but you will get the just of it.

God formed me, He knew me, He made me…perfect, in His image.  He called me by name before I was even born.  I am fearfully and wonderfully made, by Him.  He loves me, I am His child.   

I know, I have heard this all my life.  I have read the verses in the Bible more than once, actually I have read them so many times I cannot count the many times I have read them.  But here is what got me yesterday, again, I know this.  I have heard it, read it and listened to sermons about it, but it took me being in the right  place at the right time to really hear it.

God loves me.  He formed me, made me and called me by name before I was even born.  I am fearfully and wonderfully made in His image.  When I was saved, he took my sins and hurled them…he did not throw them, toss them or fling them, but he HURLED them into the deepest part of the sea.  He forgave me.

HE forgave me.

HE FORGAVE me.

HE FORGAVE ME.

I need to forgive myself. 

I will not be super mom. 

I will never be the perfect wife…

the perfect friend…

or daughter.

I accept that I have failures and will not be perfect and I know there will be those that will never let me forget that or forgive me, and I accept it.  I am going to try my best and live my life without regrets, it’s not helping me or anyone else for that matter. 

I said not to many blog posts back that I wanted to blog with transparency, well I am here to say, I am not perfect.  Geeze, I just admitted to the cyber-world that I am having panic attacks, that’s pretty transparent!  HA!  All joking aside, I needed to be there yesterday, hearing what this lady had to say.  She was so nervous and she stood on a stage in a room full of women and touched one woman in ways that she may not ever know.  I am so thankful for that.  Of course, it is easy to say you are going to do something and much harder to actually live up to it and DO IT.  I am going to try really hard to live me!  Live my life as being me, not perfect me, just me.  For those that choose not to accept me for me, as me, the imperfect me, they will just have get over it.  I am not longer worried about pleasing everyone, just living my life in a way that glorifies our Lord.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.
( Jeremiah 1:5 )

After all; For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made your works are wonderful.   All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
( Psalms 139:13,14 & 16 )

You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our :iniquities into the depths of the sea.  (Micah 7:19)