Fearfully and Wonderfully Made – Excellence Versus Perfectionism

For the past few months especially and also really for much of these past few years, I was battling a whole lot of thoughts and that along with family stuff was a whole lot.

I learned something new yesterday about myself, I have been drawn to this Bible verse about being “fearfully and wonderfully made,” for months and months, maybe years and I share it with people I love, all the time, in hopes that they will see what I see, when I see them and I mean really intentionally see them. However, yesterday I heard a deeper definition of those two words and it helped me completely shift my choices to care for myself and step forward to do what a friend had encouraged when we spoke about a month ago. Only no more halfway energy, but really do the work to get where I really want to be and own it. I have been struggling with perfectionism for most of my life, but thought I had shifted away from it. Unfortunately, I realized it was still active and for a long time and lately it had caused me to freeze up in my whole life; not just in my creativity.

This week I wanted to paint and picked up my brushes and painted my brother’s plane. It was all wrong and I actually got very upset because it was so wrong perspectively, that it just didn’t even work at all. I realized I failed at something I love to do so much and sat there looking at that painting and finally cried and cried. I couldn’t get past thoughts of failure in order to begin again. Then I decided that is it, I am skilled at watercolor and I love it so much that one mistake doesn’t get to ruin me as a whole, and I made a decision while processing with my friend Kelly, to begin again and really pay attention to lines and perspective this time. Only, I couldn’t seem to sit back down and actually put brush to canvas again. Until, I heard what my prayer counselor said to me and then she sent me a page with the words written(it is written below inside of quotes) to share with me so I could read it and save it for reflection. She reminded me that the Bible says: “I’m fearfully and wonderfully made.” She elaborated a bit with the dictionary meaning and some spiritual input, but the main words I needed to hear were the differences of EXCELLENCE and PERFECTIONISM and they are most definitely not the same. I’ve been taught about this before but something about how the words were written here with the revelation of the dictionary meanings right there changed everything for how I was able to receive it. Excellence: has the built in ability to be allowed to fail so you get to learn and try again with more knowledge. Perfectionism: is really all or nothing, once you fail once or twice you just feel defeated. It caused me to feel so defeated that I would actually consider giving up.

Oh friends, it is so crazy to learn this in this already crazy year of 2020. How a simple shift in a definition or a word can cause your whole world mentally and emotionally to be empowered by a simple choice not to allow failure to take us out, and instead to learn from it and start again with more knowledge. For me that gave me the answer I needed.

Before I heard this I cried over that painting it felt like a seemingly devastating failure. One day later equipped with new knowledge, I sat back down and finished a new entire painting, knowing it is ok to fail and it isn’t the end of the world and wouldn’t you know it, it worked out beautifully that second time.

I have a whole list of commissions and because life had been so incredibly complicated for so long, I was weary and struggling to muster creativity of any kind lately, and between the encouraging tools a friend from Booty Bands®️ & Barbells had mentioned and this new understanding and knowing it isn’t failure to start over with modifications even for exercise. Right where I am today, it is totally ok to love myself and to believe in myself and no matter what is going on around me, I still get to make lots of choices, sometimes good or sometimes bad and it is ok because I get to make the choice to shift and do it better and better each and every next time.

It is a brand new day and I have an empty palette 🎨 ready to be filled with whatever dreams and visions come to light. Working on commissioned paintings for those of you who have been praying for me and waiting patiently, thank you and much love.

Exciting day with a brand new shift in my understanding, and I know it will be a good day no matter what it looks like.

Blessings and Love My Friends!❤️

Joy Lynn

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Here is what was sent to me:

“FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE

PSALM 139:14

Fearfully Made

Designed with careful respect, EXCELLENCE, particularly detailed, highly esteemed, with great quality, proper acceptance and acknowledgement, honored, favored.

Privileged position, a place from where we can see, notice, discern between good and evil, life and death and choose which we will serve.

Wonderfully Made

EXCELLENCE, awesome, overwhelmed with amazement = astonishing and astounding, phenomenal= highly extraordinary beyond the usual you think you are, unique.

Curious= eager to learn, inquisitive, prepared for and with effective skill.

Made with painstaking accuracy and attention, marked by intricacy.

Perfectionism – Worldly Standard : A personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything less. In perfectionism we set a goal for which we must not fail. We try, try, try, fail, beat ourselves up, quit, or go on trying with a record of wrongs attached to our efforts producing regret.

VERSUS

EXCELLENCE: Designed with built-in ability to reach highest potential. This excellence includes failure. Failure is built into the plan. Opportunity to choose a goal considering, in advance, failure as an experience of learning and forgiving then choose to get up and reach again wiser than we began. Choose, accomplish, fail, forgive, choose again… without regret. Failure is built into the plan.

We are handmade and wonderfully complex according to Psalm 139:14. We are set apart.

– Wellspring Ministries, Anchorage, Alaska”

Blog Post written by Joy Lynn McCavit

Fish Jumping Out Of Its Bowl: Fish Out Of Water! Abiding in Christ Jesus!

This is the first of what I am calling Love Letters From Abba! They had been compilations of dreams and visions I have while painting SOZO Prophetic Healing Paintings for specific people. God however has begun to expand on that and I now believe some dreams are for metaphorical paintings with words for more than one singular person. Hope this blesses you and helps you understand how amazingly beloved you are to your Heavenly Father for BEing exactly wonderfully YOU. The bible says you are: “…fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalms 139:14 He loves you and wants to make Himself known to you right where you are today wherever that is beloved. Enjoy!

What if being a fish out of water is exactly what being set free were to look like? What if jumping out of your bowl and into Christ was a place of abiding in Him where you metaphorically speaking in the spiritual have to give up breathing on your own, in your stale icky gross tiny fish bowl but finally realize that abiding in Christ doesn’t make you a slave but actually sets you free. What if abiding in Him is the first time you truly were alive and fully free. What if I told you that abiding in Him set you free to not only finally die to trying to love yourself and others and that allowing His love to flow through you would be the first time you ever understood how to fully BE loved and then in that place of abiding you could fully love yourself for the first time and then all others as well. We are called to BE ambassadors of heaven. What if being an ambassador of heaven were as easy as just deciding to jump out of that tiny fish bowl, die to what you think self looks like and have Jesus step in from simply saying yes and all of a sudden you are abiding. What if His love were so perfect that all of your dry places were instantly filled, what if you didn’t have to strive to become someone different. What if the REAL you was always there and you just didn’t see it because the Beauty of His holiness hadn’t touched you completely yet but once you jumped into Him His Holiness made everything about you shine. What if I told you it isn’t about you trying to change but that understanding who you are in Christ would transform you into who you really are and one day while looking in the mirror you would BE wholly you. The you He always saw you to BE and you were free. What if in that place of freedom you began to love others just like He loved you even while you were too afraid to jump out of what you believed yourself to be. But as you cared for and loved the world around you; the other fish in those other bowls began to realize who they were in Christ and they jumped too. What if the fear lie, that kept you there was the only reason you did not understand who you really were this whole time.

I had a dream this morning of exactly this…becoming one with Christ Jesus! (On July 27, 2015)

I had thoughts; deep thoughts actually from the night before because of how I felt after being at my reunion. My class reunion helped me realize no matter how rich, poor, popular or unpopular, jock or nerd, etc. we were in high school, when we all got back together 30 years later I realized we all had struggles. I found people with children who had similar diagnosis’ as Max and they understood. Some who instead of paying for years of respite, had to pay for surgery after surgery so they too struggled financially, in years of caring for their own children. Others who were scared of spouses needing surgery. Still others with spouses who left their families just before the reunion so they are in the midst of divorce now and others who were disowned by wealthy families just like us who refused to love with strings attached and whose marriages were at risk until they too said no more and drew firm healthy boundaries. I went to sleep friends with that feeling of not being alone on my mind. Along with Dan Mohler’s don’t give any thought to the enemy, focus on God’s goodness even if the enemy screams at you because what he is screaming at you, you get to rejoice about and flip and that Kingdom promise is yours and I took the opposite word for all my trials and troubles and fell asleep rejoicing and thankful for my life exactly as it is last night.

Here is the dream: This morning I dreamt a beautiful fish leapt from its dirty filthy tiny fish bowl entrapped life onto the table and slid down and as I looked at it dying for a second I was sad and then I saw it smiling and as I scooped it into my hand I noticed it’s eyes were huge. It was seeing for the first time the truth and then my hand changed into Jesus’ hand. I saw that fish die to self and live. I believe it was you and me. Because only when you die to yourself and understand what you gain from doing so and choosing Christ can you truly live. I realized abiding in Christ became this huge connected vast watery form of Jesus with zero dry places. We don’t have to figure out how to not have dry desolate places. Abiding with Christ Jesus refreshes us and fills us with living water of His Holy Spirit. I realize after listening to Dan Mohler that I was seeing Holy Spirit or the figure I saw in my dream was Jesus as a shape with the colors of the entire world within Him as if seeing the entire planet Earth from outer space. From head to toe gloriously beautiful with blues of the sea and greens and yellows of the land and as we jumped from our bowls we became like Him connected as one, all ambassadors of love in Him and connected to each other and we loved on the rest of the fish in each of the other bowls right where they were until they too were ready to make the jump. In my dream I saw us as literal fishers of men we were fish until we abided in Christ then we could receive His love, love ourselves and then love others.

The Gardener

written by Joy Lynn McCavit

This is our daughter Katie at about 3 years old. Picture was taken on Homer Spit, in Homer, Alaska.

I wrote this for my daughter Katie when she was 16 years old and in residential treatment. It is a metaphorical story about the journey our family has made over the past 22 plus years of her life plus a few extra of our own. Some parts written in 3rd person were of my daughter and of myself when I was the same age and now my promises as a mother to my daughter for the journey I was willing to continue to take in no longer being insecure and overly submissive and finally embracing courage and strength in order to continue to change and be the strong mom and woman she needed me to be and deserved so that she could grow one day into the strong woman I knew her to be. (Our Precious Full Grown in Full Bloom Flower/Whom Gets To Be A Gardener One Day Too)

This is my journey as a wife and mother still married to a sober and still positively changing man/husband/dad. Now we are almost at our 25 years of marriage anniversary and in one more month at the time of this posting he will celebrate 8 years of sobriety. Our daughter was one of the very few lucky teenagers whom had a third degree heart block and instead of dying a tragic and sudden sporadic death from heart failure…she was saved by having had a pace maker put in her heart at the age of 16 which saved her life and was one of many things that have changed our lives as well. I open myself up to be transparent and vulnerable in order to reach out and help and encourage others who have or may still be in an alcoholic, mentally and or emotionally abusive relationship. There is much to have…hope, strength, courage, love, trust and joy…just to name a few if you are willing to reach out to others for help. Allow yourself to have a voice and refuse to stand stuck in silence. You, your family and your children will have a chance to thrive and not just settle for surviving any longer. It will take hard work and for us it took intense counseling, separation from both children for a time and even each other. It was heart wrenching but we received counseling, formed healthy boundaries and thru it all were blessed with finding our daughters heart problem and finally finding a diagnosis that helped us seek healing for our son as well. But if I can do it…YOU and you know who you are… can too!!!

With God All Things Are Possible!!!

The Gardener

I watered you and fertilized you my little flower but then I forgot to (teach you the things you needed to know) pull the weeds and protect your boundaries from the falling rocks and the animals that ran past and didn’t stay on their own path. It was my job my precious flower to cover your roots and nurture you and protect your leaves from disease and then allow the sun (son) to shine upon you. The weeds choked your light and when I gave up the fight, you somehow found your way to grow and survive, but my precious flower you deserve to thrive. So when your little petals lost their color and your leaves started to die, we realized the mistakes we made and I transplanted you to a beautiful new nursery for the winter, with the perfect amount of fertilizer and water and they mix the soil with just the right nutrients for your roots and stem to grow strong. Your Dad and I get to attend training classes so that we can understand the secret ingredients, we never learned about when we were growing up. We are building a new foundation and when we transplant you back into our garden, you will not be planted among weeds, you will be planted among the most beautiful protection of rocks and flowers you’ve ever seen. We know what ingredients you need for your soil, we know the right amount of water and we know when to not over water or over fertilize. We know when to let you stretch and grow and how to keep the weeds down. We know you are growing into a beautiful prize winning flower with your own special fragrance and color. You need love and care, but not enough care and you whither, too much care and handling and your leaves and petals can be crushed, just enough and you shine and are brilliant to admire. One day you will be ready to pick and my precious flower you will be in your full glory. One day when you are ready, you get to turn into a gardener too (like Pinocchio became a real boy) with the right tools. Without realizing it our neglect allowed you to almost whither and die and when I went out to the garden to find you, I couldn’t see you. The weeds grew up around you and I cried out to God, “Please help me find my precious flower, please I will do whatever it takes. I will learn how to take care of her, please God please help me find her, show me what to do, teach me how to take care of her and give me another chance.” He answered “okay” and when you were transplanted it was almost too late and you needed some new parts, with the help from a surgeon”s hands they grafted on some new pieces and then you were brand new with some new parts that we were fortunate enough to find before it was too late. The flower gardener and the vegetable gardener found their love again, through raising a precious flower. The vegetable gardener learned how to accept and love his gentle side while teaching the flower gardener how to be strong and firm and how to not smother or neglect you. But, some vegetable fertilizers are harmful or too harsh for flowers so I taught him how much was okay and we formed a bond while being taught how to do this by professionals and grew to love the things we had in common and appreciate the things about each other that we didn’t. We learned to listen when we needed extra information and learned that we can still love each other and slow down and not try to pass on too much information all at once. We love each other so very much now, instead of just needing each other, we want the knowledge and love of the other. The love we had before was in danger and working towards bringing you home has taught us things we would have never learned by ourselves, we are together against all odds, this vegetable gardener and flower gardener and our precious flower gets to thrive and truly come alive.

Sometimes our stems are fragile and it takes a certain nurturing to grow strong in a healthy way, but sometimes we grow strong out of a desire to live and we grew up too fast and were forced to push our way through falling debris and lack of water and nutrients and then we would get a sprinkle of fertilizer or a sprinkle of water and we were okay for another day. Some days it rained and we weren’t sure our petals were going to be okay, but then the sun came out again and we were sure life would be okay again and then the wind blew and sometimes really hard and sometimes we bend so far we think that we will break, but then the sun came out again and we were still okay and we didn’t break. Sometimes the gardener had to give us a stake to support us, but sometimes she was too weak to follow through and bring it to you. So we had to grin and bear it and be strong and fortunately we were stronger than we thought and then the bud started opening up and we got to bloom and eventually we got to show our true colors and as the nutrients and correct amounts of water and protection and care and kindness, we didn’t have to fight for what we needed any longer and eventually the gardeners came more often and checked on us and no longer were afraid to breathe out and let go and give you the carbon dioxide you needed, we quit holding our breath, trying to keep it all, in case we gave away too much. We didn’t want to be rejected or we closed our eyes in fear and sometimes released our breath of life in the wrong direction and now we finally can open our eyes and breathe. Breathe precious life into our precious flower.

We say we love you to the moon and back but until today it may have seemed like empty words, but today our promise to you is that those words are forever true, our precious flower we love you forever and ever just for being YOU!

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