the cliffs of insanity

[chestnutcurls]

I'm reading the Princess Bride book for the first time, so the cliffs are vivid in my mind right now...

I apologize in advance for the whininess of this post.

No sooner did I get to work today than I realized I had screwed up something else, completely unrelated to last week's drama. I took care of it and now I'm hoping no one will notice. I'm annoyed at myself, and I can't stand being so anxious and miserable at work all the time. I didn't make any big mistakes for 8 months, and now it's like I've forgotten how to do everything. And there is a pack of hungry wolves out in Beverly Hills waiting for me to mess up something huge.

I'm not sure if this is a result or a cause of my work problems, but I have not felt well for a while. My head and my throat are constantly hurting, and as aforesaid, I want to sleep all the time. It occurred to me yesterday that (heaven forbid) I might have mono, but Kathy says I would have much worse cold symptoms if I did. She thinks the tiredness is psychological, caused by the mundanity of my job. (Not that it's been mundane lately. :P)

Mainly I am going nuts from my own inadequacy. I'm not good enough to do a good job at work. I'm not good enough to love people as I should. I'm not good enough for one of my best friends to find me attractive. The last time I experienced something like this was several years ago, right before I became Reformed; the constant thought of, "Must do better! Must be perfect!" and then doing worse than before. Then I realized that yes, I am screwed up, and there is no way I can ever do better. But Christ did. He was perfect, so I don't have to worry about it. Why am I suddenly unable to apply this to my life?

Now I will stop complaining, and try to say something positive later.

Comments

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

Hey, I understand how you feel. And sometimes just when things look really bad, God tweaks a few things for you (even if you forget to pray for it) so that it is more manageable.

I like to remember the passage (and the Jennifer Knapp song, I might add) that says "His grace is sufficient." For a long time I didn't quite understand what that meant. But one night, I was really upset about life and just crying about it all to my friend and he said "Just remember that God's grace is sufficient." And I angrily explained that I didn't know what it meant, but as I was saying it it totally came clear to me. No matter how bad we are, or what we do to mess up things or fall short, God has enough power and mercy (and grace) to cover all of it and make it better. It's like if I totally screwed up and somehow wasted thousands and thousands of dollars, God has TRILLIONS of dollars to cover it, and my problems seem very manageable suddenly. With God, anyway.

Anyway, that was a mini-sermon and all stuff that you already know, I'm sure, but I thought I'd ramble a little.

I hope you feel better--trust me I've been grouchy about stuff so I shouldn't even talk. I did NOT want to come to work today.

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Thanks for relating. And don't worry about preaching- you can never hear those things too often. :) I love that song too.

What you said about the trillions of dollars reminded me of a true story our campus minister used to tell, about an accountant (?) in the Russian army who started embezzling funds. One day he was reviewing the books and saw that he had stolen more money than he could ever pay back. He knew he couldn't hide it, and the penalty would be death. He drank some poison or something to kill himself, but it was only enough to knock him out. While he was passed out, the czar himself came into the office, found the man, and saw the records. Instead of killing him, the czar erased the man's debt from the records and stamped it with his seal. Then he went away. When the man came to and saw that he had been freed from his debt, he couldn't believe it.

Anyway, I always liked that story, and thought you might like it too. :)