this is my story

I do not like the word “blog.”

I do not know why.

I am going to use “journal” instead.

Allow me to tell you a story about how the journal you are reading came to exist.

In fourth grade, I was handed my first hardcover journal. A small golden clasp kept the book tightly bound and only my little key unlocked it. In this journal, my thoughts were safe. They were hidden and did not have to be spoken out loud. I panicked at simply the thought of these thoughts ever being shared. Because the truth is, I thought, if anyone ever knew the real me, I’d be rejected and identified as a fraud, or worse, as unlovable. Over the years, there were more journals, more safe, isolated spaces. Dreams lived there, dwelling with fear, insecurity, anger, confusion, and brokenness I was unwilling to speak. So I wrote, vigorously.  

I still collect journals. They are safe spaces, venting places, the keeper of many gratuities (and curse words). My long acquainted shoulder-sitter, fear, often persuades me to keep my thoughts fastened between this paper. “Rachel, you don’t have anything new to say...why waste your time? People don’t really care about your ideas. You’re not that smart, anyways. Your story isn’t that relatable. You’re actually not a very good writer anyways...your grammar is FAR from perfect- ironic, since you're a teacher...”

Do you know that voice? I wish you did not. I suspect, however, that you do. That voice is a mighty, ever-present lingerer in my life. It ruthlessly robs me- it robs us- of our most powerful gifts.

This voice has long directed my narrative. Perfectionism has arrested my mind, body, and soul for as long as I can remember. As a teen, it established itself through high achieving, people pleasing, and a relentless thirst for approval and recognition. Though I appeared confident and successful, the internal dialogue of "never-enough" dominated my stories. It raged war against my light. Perfectionism is itself a paradox; it makes its victims keenly deceptive. You might appear to be winning or winsome, though your soul is utterly wretched. As a college student, perfectionism declared itself through an eating disorder and addiction to exercise. Recovery, not only from the eating disorder, but from this deep-seeded perfectionism, has led me down a new, very different path of moving and being in this world. It has led me down a path of grace and self-acceptance. 

This space is meant to provide honest reflections and realizations I have discovered on my journey towards loving my soul and believing in my belovedness. My hope is not to tell you how to live or improve or perfectly recover from an addiction or stronghold in five easy steps- we’d have to time travel back to Eden and I regret to inform you, I do not have such power. This journal is not about my story being the thing that transforms you, but it is about pointing you towards the One who has the power to transform. My hope is to inspire you towards a full, free, and abundant life. My hope is that fragments of my story might resonate with yours, so that you might not feel so alone in whatever dark you feel. My hope is to encourage you, name you, and challenge you to accept the idea that you are actually already accepted. My heartbeat is for you to join me in parting with perfection, allowing intimacy, believing you and I belong.

You and I long to feel truly known, seen, and heard, in the presence, not absence, of our darkest broken. Our hearts are wired for connection, formed for friendship, and desperate to belong. The moments that refine us, inspire us, and rewire us, are the holy moments that we feel shattered, yet secure, broken, yet held.

It is, however, a terrifying thing to be held, and believed in, and seen at our rock bottom worst and perhaps even more so in our ordinary, every day mess. It feels so uncomfortable; my ‘porcupine prickles,’ as I often say to Coy, dart out of my flesh like lightening, instinctual and with great force, as if saying, “back away, be gone, do not come near me or I will poke you with my prickles.” We defend. We run. We hide, in and under the thing that has actually harmed us in the first place: the belief that we’re not lovable, our shame, our perfectionist ways, our loneliness or instinct to isolate, our addictions or the way we numb emotions so we can deceive ourselves into believing they do not exist. We can only see what we are willing to see.

We must, I must, our culture must, learn to allow and receive the uncomfortable, the unthinkable, the unbelievable. When we do, we transform and surrender. In doing so, we begin to part with the mistaken theology of perfection, allow intimacy, and, eventually, believe we are enough to be loved. Not when we lose five pounds or make more money or put on our makeup or buy a house or finally get our shit together. We are loved as we are, right in this moment, as we are today. When we learn to be held by Him who calls us beloved, we grow soft and secure, laying down our shields of defense, and picking up a new shield of faith that says we are loved not by our own merit, but through His given grace. Dare we believe it.

Our souls were made by love, out of love, and for love. If this is true, it beckons us to flee our secluded shelters, built by the hands of fear and shame, and run towards a wildly imperfect, counter-cultural, abundant life.