Eden, or something like it

Maybe you have been reading my blogs for sometime. You might recall some posts entitled Lessons from the Lounge Chairthat I wrote back when my heart condition started in 2016. In every season of hardship or discomfort there are lessons to be learned, and I often find for me I can only seem to learn lessons in those seasons. I wish it was in the simple classroom of “other’s experience and listening” that I could learn, but God knows best. He knows my temperament and my need. He knows what I need to really learn His truth and the lessons of life. 

This past week Hadessah was admitted to the local hospital for a bacteria infection. Of course the fact that my 4 month old was sick with blood in her stool and in an Indian hospital was scary. The hospital we admitted her to has an amazing doctor who is a believer and gives amazing care, yet it’s backwards infrastructure still exists where the nurses don’t wear gloves and there is no soap in the bathrooms. Fighting fear seems to be a constant battle as a parent, but especially in these circumstances. Yet it wasn’t fear that was my biggest battle this past week; it was perfectionism. 

My inner struggle string of perfectionism was strung again this week as the doctors and nurses seemingly used shame to fear me into protecting Hadessah in the future. At least that’s how it felt. Perhaps it was my own inner lies speaking. We live in such a shame based culture, it felt as though each word spoken to us was a judgment of what we were doing wrong and why our baby was sick. 

“You don’t keep a hat on her all the time, this is why she is sick. You used zinc ointment instead of coconut oil; this is why her diaper rash isn’t healing. You aren’t nursing and this is why your baby wasn’t protected from bacteria. You let your baby sit-up and that’s why she spits up; she should only lay or be held upright. You used American sterilization bags for her bottles instead of boiling her bottles for 20 minutes, this is why she is sick.” What I heard wasn’t facts or helpful truths; it was judgments, shaming, and lies. I heard: “You aren’t doing a good enough job, you should have done ‘this’ better. You failed here as a parent. You weren’t wise. You are not perfect.”

Our inner beliefs shape everything about our lives and how we interpret the words of others around us as well. As I arrived home after Hadessah’s discharge, I knew the lies of perfectionism that I struggle with were playing on repeat in my head and that I needed time away with the Father. I needed to hear His truth.

I reflected on a prayer from a friend, asking that God would grow me deeper even through Hadessah’s hospitalization. I laughed, “of course God would want to use this tooto take me deeper!” He is always growing me. Growing, growing, growing me, and of course growing requires weeding. 

God began speaking to me about the simple grace and innocence that existed in the Garden of Eden before the fall, before the knowledge of good and evil. In Eden, nothing could separate Adam and Eve from the confidence of His love and covering. They couldn’t feel shame, guilt, or condemnation because they didn’t know good and evil, and there was no sin. In that moment of prayer and realization, I felt as though the Lord blew the whistle on all the perfectionism lies in my life, and those big fat lies fell flat and lifeless. I cannot be perfect. I make mistakes and will make mistakes all the time, but my God is gracious and loving. He covers me with his PERFECT love and His righteousness. He shows unconditional love and acceptance despite my neediness and wrong. God desires for us to live in the Spirit in the beauty, grace, and innocence of the original purity of the garden. In that place, there is no striving, no effort, no need for perfectionism, just pure abiding with the Father and His provision of righteousness and perfection. (Romans 8)

He is all we need!

Since the fall, gardens take work: weeding, watering, deadheading, care, attention, and, some experts even say, tender talk for growth. My growth takes work too. As one friend also processed and reminded me, “I can’t be perfect all the time. To maintain beauty, God needs to be doing the work in me to keep my garden at the original beauty.”

It was always God, not my perfectionism. God’s love, His provision of the cross, His perfectionism that made the way for me to know purity and acceptance. I want this Truth song to be played on the strings of my heart each day. I don’t want to go back to the old strings of perfectionistic lies being strung. 

My prayer: Lord, play this truth song on my heart each day. You and only you! I find my life and acceptance in you alone. You are enough, and all I need is to stay in the Garden of Your Presence and dwell with You.