I can let everyone else have a break but me. I can’t take being graded on a curve. I want that top o’ the heap, nail the 100% A+ grade every time. Since I don’t always achieve it, I’m setting myself up for disappointment every time I don’t get that grade.

So where does that expectation come from? And why can’t I take a solid “B” in a class and relax???

I know who is recorded on this “tape” in my head. I replay it over and over, and it isn’t healthy. It makes me want to do one of two extremes: give up and say “why try? I never will!” or dig in my heels and aggressively tackle the assignment, or task ahead of me.

It drives my family crazy when I am in “A+” mode. And even if I joke with them about the fact that I can get a “C” on my paper and still get an “A” in the class, I want to nail that “A” just to prove I “deserve” to be in seminary.

What’s with that?

I can give you several reasons why…
– the words from people in my past who tell me what a woman/wife/mother should or should not do
– the overwhelming feeling that I need to knock out quality work because it’s for my vocation, my calling
– the unintended guilt trip from a professor who states that many students “do not take the time” to do quality work on a project or paper…

In the words of Stuart Smalley:
I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!”

Or as Robert McGhee says:
Satan’s lie: “Your Worth = Your Performance + Others’ Opinions”

I am going back to my Truth Card that I wrote out when I studied McGhee’s Search for Significance a few months ago:

• I am deeply loved by God (I John 4:9-10)
• I am completely forgiven and am fully pleasing to God (Romans 5:1)
• I am totally accepted by God (Col 1:21-22)
• I am a new creation, complete in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17)

No longer bound
to earth’s trails that deceive me
I am walking in faith
and in God’s love that encompasses me.
I leaned on friends,
but now only YOU…
Redeemer
Savior
Friend.

Amen.

Still learning and leaning…
Deb