Psalm 104
I was rushing around, making my to-do list like I do every morning. One kid was screaming, and the middle couldn’t find his library book. We were running late. Then it happened. The oldest one spilled his drink. I lost it. I started to spew negative thoughts. “Did you have to spill?” “Why did you have your cup on the edge of the table?” And so it goes. Until my child felt like he was nothing. Yes, I was that Mom—the perfectionist. Everything had to be just right. Everything had to be perfect. I had such a state of high anxiety, even I didn’t know I had. Anxiety Disorder runs in my family. I was so conditioned to it being “normal” that I didn’t even know how awful I was back then. It wasn’t until I saw the damaging effects on my children that I started to change on my own over the years with God’s help.
Perfectionism. It’s a curse. I think for me, it started very young. In my home growing up, it was very dysfunctional, and one of the only things I could control was the state of my bedroom cleanliness. We were taught to make our beds military style every day as an expectation, which didn’t me. I would organize my dresser and closet over and over. I would rotate my clothes. I would sort by color. I would wear my clothes in a particular order. I would clean out seasonally. I was 8- 9 years old. I was also very abused in every way. I probably would have been diagnosed with OCD. Marie Kondo would have loved me!
Fast forward many years, and I was a perfectionistic wife. Yelling at my children, anxiety-filled if my house wasn’t spotless. Yes, I was that Mom, and I’m not proud of those early days and so thankful for God’s grace and a loving husband, but that is no longer me. I learned something, but it was a long, hard lesson that came through the oddest way. A mission trip to a developing country. I learned the secret of control. Control is a myth. We will never have it. We will never obtain it, just like perfectionism.
My first mission trip was to El Salvador in 2014. It taught me quickly that we never really have control, especially in driving in foreign countries! El Salvador is a small, volcanic country. The roads and the locals drove recklessly! I would hang on with all my strength, no seatbelt, are you kidding?
On the first night of a 7-day trip, almost like something out of Spiderman, I got bit by what looked like a Spider. (It was hard to tell as there was no electricity, and I shined my flashlight from my phone down at my ankle just in time to see a black insect crawling away…) I developed a stiff neck by the end of the week, was dizzy, and had a fever of over 104 degrees. I did have what looked like a Lyme’s Disease ring at my ankle, (but supposedly, El Salvador does not have any insects that carry Lyme’s Disease.)
When I got back home, I was never the same. I started to go to doctors who thought maybe it was Lyme’s Disease and put me on Doxycycline. I started to gain a lot of weight (20-30 pounds) and developed extreme fatigue, inflammation, and chronic pain. I was bounced around from doctor to doctor. No one knew what was wrong with me.
I was diagnosed with ME/CFS. I was working as a Realtor and, at this time, an Interior Designer. I would work half a day and often return to bed by noon. My children would come home from school to find me asleep every day. I developed a chronic illness that would be with me for the rest of my life and would be a 7-year battle to discover what I had at the root of it all. How to heal as much as possible, but in the meantime, I had to let go of many things, including my perfectionism.
Control vs. Order
I love Psalm 104 in its entirety. It talks about how God created this Earth. Our God is a God of ORDER. Look at Math. It is sequential. Our calendar or our seasons. Everything he created is all in harmony when it has order. There is a vast difference between order and control. Perfectionism is about controlling the situation. Control is about power and self. It is about wanting to be in charge, to be a god to ourselves. Order is about the organization and no chaos. Instead, let God have the ultimate control to order everything in perfect harmony and create peace.
Honestly, I've found it exhausting when I’ve tried to control things myself. The more I try to control the situation myself, the more exhausted I get, spiraling into full anxiety. How about you? When I, instead, relinquish the control to God, I find peace. Having a chronic illness hasn’t been fun, but I have learned to “count it all joy” and give glory to God because it often stops me from falling back into the trap of perfectionism. I’d rather have a few pain days where I get to spend time on the couch with Jesus than check something off a to-do list.