Bar...none.

There's a certain amount of stress that comes with being gifted. First off...it's really hard to admit. No one likes a show-off, and I've tried really hard not to be one. In college, my closest friends would work really, really hard for months on a paper and get so excited when they got a C+ or a B. It was so awkward to try and respond honestly when I was asked what grade I got; they all knew I wrote it up quickly the night before (or even that morning), and with little to no "effort" got a...."mumble mumble," "What was that, Sara?" "cough...100%...blush, cough cough, mumble."

Yes, I do a lot of things really, really well. But when I get applaud me for it, I don't feel a sense of pride or gratefulness. What I feel is pressure.

When someone sets a goal or a standard for themselves, we call it "setting the bar." Sometimes, this proverbial "bar" is really high, sometimes it's really low, and sometimes it's a goal that is within manageable reach. But as a person who God has somehow gifted to be good at almost whatever she does, I find myself frequently being commended as someone who has already reached what other people would call a "high bar."

Do you know how hard it is to retain your position in other people's measurements? This one time, in fourth grade I think, I got an F on an assignment. Since that moment, I think I've only ever gotten below a B once or twice. Just the mere thought of possibly getting a C would give me minor anxiety attacks. It wasn't that my parents were pushing me to get good grades; it was just that one moment of feeling their and my teacher's disappointment when I fell below their bar.

Another time in fifth grade I got in trouble in class for staring out the window during a lesson. The next day while we were in line, the boy I happened to like at the time talked to me for the very first time (even though we were in the same class and on the same recess two-hand touch football group) and said, "Man, I've never seen you get in trouble before." If I wasn't already feeling shame, I started to then.

Another time more recently, I was not as prepared as I thought I would be for a computer class I was teaching to seniors. I (in my opinion) bumbled my way through the whole lesson, believing the students to feel more confused than they were before they came, and only smiled at me out of pity. In all honesty, I probably did a great job, and they probably were genuinely smiling at me out of gratefulness for trying to teach old dogs new tricks (they are the most adorable and hilariously funny old dogs! love em bunches!!).

But sometimes it's hard to be the good girl. Sometimes I get so tired of people telling me how wonderful I am that I just want to scream. Other times, on days like yesterday and today, when I have so much to do and so many people to please by doing it well, I start to forget who I really am. My ability to empathize with other people tends to go out the window, along with my ability to care about what I'm saying and to whom I am speaking (and yes, I had to backspace to fix my own grammar) in favor of "I have to get all of this done, and it has to be done right, and I don't have time for anything else but doing it all perfectly to my perception of what your standards are...which is perfect." But when it offends my coworkers, or when I lose my normally natural (and very beautiful) smile to a panicked staring-into-the-distance frown, something is less-than-perfect in my world.

The Truth is that God gifted my hands to be good at a lot of things (just don't ask me to play basketball or do a cartwheel). And He gave me those gifts in order to bless those around me. Because I am empathetic to people's feelings and needs, and I love to be able to bless them in any way that I can. But when I am trying to be what everyone else thinks I am (or in reality, what I think they are thinking), it dishonors my Creator; essentially I'm telling Him, "yeah, You did alright, but I think their idea of me is a billion times better."

The Truth is...God is the Creator of a lot of things, but a "bar" isn't one of them. When He told us, "Be holy, just as I Am holy," (Leviticus 11:45) or "Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect," (Matthew 5:48) it wasn't setting us up for failure, trying to reach an unattainable goal. I think our culture has been focusing on the wrong word: perfect instead of be. The Latin word for the verb "to be" is Esse, which can be found in the English word "Essence." What (I believe) Jesus was trying to say was, "Look, I made you; just BE who I made you to be, because I made you in My Image, which is pure holiness and perfect." So in reality, holiness and perfection should be as easy to us as breathing, because it's what we were made for. So why am I trying to hard to be perfect?

Someday, hopefully soon, I will stop trying to be the good girl...not in favor of being a bad one, but in favor of simply and beautifully just being me. I've been trying to stop trying (?) these last ten years, and I've had many people help me along the way. But it takes surrender on my part of my own standards, of other people's standards, and of my unhealthy desire to attain both. All I can do is look into His eyes and breathe. In, and out. In, and out. And smile, because He's smiling. That's all I really wanted, anyway.