As I Have Loved You
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Faith on Monday, October 27, 2008 12:15 PM
A week ago I had a phone conversation with my dear younger sister, who is a self-admitted perfectionist.
She was upset about a mistake she’d made that day. It was a fairly minor thing and the consequences were going to inconvenience only her personally, but she was still beating herself up about it. “What kind of person is so stupid that they [insert mistake here]?” she kept repeating.
I made her stop the self-flagellation and helped her put the incident in perspective. I pointed out to her that if someone else she knew had made a mistake like hers, she would never call that person “stupid,” so why did she think it was okay to be so unforgiving toward herself?
After a while she calmed down and we got off the phone, but I’ve been thinking about the incident all week. I love to give advice (what big sister doesn’t?) and I’m happy I was able to help my sister, but I’m painfully aware that in this particular case, I’m not good at following my own advice.
Humility is a virtue, and penance can be a good form of discipline. Too often, though, I translate that incorrectly to mean that beating myself up is okay. I often spend days recalling small errors in judgment or silly words that slipped out, wondering how I could have been so “stupid.”
Ironically, this often distracts me from the pursuit of true humility. I am unable to do a realistic and loving assessment of my faults and to ask for extra grace from God in those areas if I’m obsessing about honest mistakes. And honest mistakes are not really signs of shortcomings at all, unless you consider being a human and not a robot a shortcoming!
I know that God has called me to live my life, with the help of his grace, in loving those around me with my best imitation of his perfectly just and perfectly merciful love. I know I am supposed to try to love all people in this way. I’m just not sure where I got the idea that “all people” doesn’t include myself.
This evening I talked to my sister and, happily, she seems to have taken my advice and moved on from her mistake. In honor of her resilience, I’m going to ask God to help me stop beating myself up so that I can have clarity to see the areas in my life where I truly need his grace… and so that as I love myself more kindly, I’ll be able to love those around me better as well.
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