The article below is written by Erin and the same story of grace and true wellness as the video. It is very close to the content of the video but is not an exact word for word transcript.
I used to think true wellness meant doing everything well — juggling all the balls, keeping those pesky ducks in a row. Sure, I’d cut myself some slack when it came to housecleaning or my personal appearance, but my drive for perfection was just about as hardwired into me as my need to be loved. It’s no wonder those wires would get crossed.
I didn’t have to work hard in school to get straight A’s, so others thought I was smart, gifted, going places. The valedictorian of my high school class predicted that I would be the driving force behind some sort of worldwide movement. What hid behind that “mover and shaker” mask, however, was an insecure little girl who had no idea where she was headed or what she was doing. I learned to wear the masks of the assumptions people made, based on my natural talents, but it only seemed to isolate me all the more. Deep down, I fell for the lie that if my performance ever slackened, so would people’s love for me.
Well into my adult life, after being married for many years and birthing four beautiful children, my performance finally tanked. After aiming at perfection for so long, I fell from the frayed ends of my rope flat on my face. One subtle lie after another deceived me until I was living a lie. And I became convinced that if I ever took this mask off, I would surely lose all the love I had ever known. There was One who knew me inside and out though, and I discovered I could not erase His love for me. When I expected judgment and humiliation, He continued to surprise me with His lavish love. At my personal version of rock bottom, God could finally prove to me that it was me He loved. . . not my performance, not my perfect track record. He loved me!
God gave me the strength and grace to initiate a journey of mask-ripping intimacy with my husband, a journey that I didn’t realize he was just as desperate for as I was. As Jesus shattered the lies that held me in bondage, chains I knew nothing about that my husband had carried nearly all his life began to snap as well. I will forever marvel at the way God used our selfishness and the undoing of our own hands to build us the life-giving marriage we always longed for but could never seem to achieve.
I discovered that true wellness looks a lot less like perfection and a lot more like truth. Only when my husband and I were brave enough to embrace the truth about ourselves, but more importantly the truth about God and His undying love for us, did we find a freedom in our lives that had always eluded us.
I describe our story as one of “unlikely grace” because we, of all people, should have known better. As servants in the Church, ministering the word of God, we couldn’t plead ignorance. But God knew that in that tight spot where the enemy of our souls would pin us, His grace would finally mean something to us personally. Grace would go from being a theological reality or a religious buzz word to a blazoned word, etched forever on our hearts. To me, being truly well means living and breathing God’s unlikely grace all the days of my life, because I know I could never live and breathe a day without it.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. . .Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. – John 1:14, 16-17 CSB
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