Mistakes

We all make them. We are all totally imperfect human beings. Yet how we handle our mistakes can be very influential on our well-being.

I was heavy hearted last week over a conversation I had with the women at the jail. We talked about the significance of their mistakes, mostly drug-related, on the course of their lives and the destruction of their families.  Tears filled our tiny classroom and pain filled my heart as I sat with these women, so full of love for their children but so broken by addiction and abuse. It was important for them to feel the pain of their actions and understand the consequences on those who cared for them.  It was a step in healing from these mistakes. They needed to feel remorse and gain that perspective in order to move forward in their journeys.

While we all need to feel the pain of our mistakes, we can't stay in that painful place forever.  Guilt is important when we have done something wrong. It motivates us to learn from that mistake and do something different in the future.  However when we sit and wallow in that pain for long periods of time, our guilt becomes shame.  When we shift from thinking, "I've done something bad" to "I am bad" we become paralyzed by our mistakes.  Rather than using our pain for motivation, we use our pain as an excuse for more mistakes.  And we get stuck in an awful cycle of trying to run from our shame, and thus creating more of it.

I am a perfectionist by nature.  I've realized that perfectionism is incredibly harmful to me, thus I've decided to be a "Recovering Perfectionist".  When I make a mistake, I have an old habit of beating myself up and focusing on the negative.  The thoughts of my mistakes can haunt me for years.  (I still remember the question I "should" have know on my IQ test when I was in 2nd grade about water being called H20... my 7 year old self could not believe I had forgotten that!)  I have had to remind myself constantly that it is ok to be imperfect. It is part of life to make mistakes.  I do not need to dwell on those mistakes, but rather need to make amends and determine what I can do better in the future.  I need to not only seek forgiveness from those I hurt, but to seek self-forgiveness.

When we harbor shame, we deny ourself the mercy and grace that we give to others.  No one truly deserves grace and mercy, but we have it. Not because we earned it, but because Christ earned it for us. I am imperfect and broken, but He is perfect and through His blood, He sees us as Whole.