I am one of those people who will instantly forgive you if you have done something horrible to me. I do not hold burdens to anyone - except to myself. I can easily forgive someone else who has done me wrong but it is the hardest thing in the world for me to forgive myself if I have done someone else wrong.

I am a very playful person and I also never shut my mouth. I have a filter most of the time, but what usually gets me in trouble with myself is when I am messing around and do something stupid. Something as small as spritzing someone with my water bottle and accidentally playing a song with a cuss word in it in front of the whole VHS baseball field. Most people will just laugh it off and say "Oh, I'm sorry," which I try to say out loud to make myself feel better, but in the end, it takes me hours to let it go. My whole life has been like that. I have always hated getting in trouble by even my parents. It goes all the way back to when I was in kindergarten when my teacher told my mom that I don't talk much (which is the complete opposite now) because I was scared that I was going to do or say something wrong. Fast forward 12 years, and I have made many mistakes, yet I still kill my self-confidence over them.

So, the past 18 years of me spending my life destroying myself all came down to an hour that I could have spent watching The Good Doctor, but instead it was spent losing my mind and having a breakdown over the mistakes I had made just that one day and turning it into all the ones I have made over the years. I had to sob out 18 years worth of guilt, while my mom had to tell me over and over again to say, "SarahAnn, I forgive you," out loud. It took me 10 minutes to get just those four short words out, but they were the hardest I have ever had to say. But let me tell ya, there was so much freedom in saying it out loud. So now, I have little reminders in my phone that go off at noon and before I go to bed each day, to say out loud, "SarahAnn, I forgive you," for the mistakes I made that day.

I have worked hard - I have actually worked my butt off - the past two years trying to find the "real SarahAnn," because I had the thought process that the SarahAnn I am supposed to be is the one that people see at school who is nice and never gets mad. But I have put up a guard that is hard to let down now, because it has taken forever for me to come to terms with the fact that I am unworthy and it is okay to show that I am not always happy. I am not always nice, I get pissed off on a daily basis, I cry a lot, I make a ton of mistakes, and for God's sake, I am not perfect by any means. I am so not worthy of the love that the Lord tirelessly pours out on me.

So, Dear Perfectionists,

We are not perfect. We never have been and never will be. We are unworthy, nasty, sinful human beings that do not deserve the grace that is bestowed upon us every single day. But guess what? That's the point. God sent his son down to this dark world to die a brutal death on the cross, so we can live a life that is free from the burdens of sin that Satan so badly tries to bring down on us. Rise up, believers. Understand that you are unworthy, but God calls you daughter. You make mistakes, but He has put a crown on your head. One day, even despite the many times you will let God down, He is going to look you in the eye, at those beautiful golden gates, with light shining down on you, and say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant, well done." Your purpose here on earth is not to be perfect and live up to being the best, because that will never happen (and I am going to have to go back and read this over and over again). Your purpose is to lead people who do not believe to the cross. To be an example, and love unconditionally like the Father loves us. You want people to look at you and say she is not perfect, but she is humble. She walks with humility and forgives relentlessly. She even forgives herself.

God forgives you, sweet child. He loves you with such an abundant and unfathomable love. He overlooks your sins and mistakes, so why should we not do the same?

I wanna share with you a super insightful excerpt from the book Uninvited by Lysa Terkeurst, (which by the way, I think every girl should read). It's long, but stick with me, because it holds so much truth. In this part of the book, Lysa is talking about when she visited Israel and she stood in the Garden of Gethsemane, and realized that she was in the exact place that Jesus stood the night before His crucifixion. She is surrounded by olive trees, and gives reasoning that brought tears to my eyes the first time I read it:

"...I don't think it was a coincidence the olive tree was there in those moments of deep sorrow for Jesus. Yes, the resurrection was coming! Jesus knew that. But in the moment of being overwhelmed with sorrow, He, too, wrestled. And what was the setting of this most profound moment? A garden full of olive trees. The olive tree is such a picture of perspective. I believe the Creator of all, who does everything with purpose, chose to be in the shade and shadow of the olive trees often. And possibly didn't just choose to be among the olive trees in His darkest hour, but might He have actually created them for such a time as this? Yes, the olive tree was more than just a backdrop for Jesus.

First, in order to be fruitful, the olive tree has to have both the east wind and the west wind. The east wind is the dry hot wind from the desert. This is a harsh wind. So harsh that it can blow over green grass and make it completely wither in one day. The west wind, on the other hand, comes from the Mediterranean. It brings rain and life. The olive tree needs both of these winds to produce fruit — and so do we. We need both winds of hardship and relief to sweep across our lives if we are to be truly fruitful.

Another thing to consider about the olive tree is how naturally bitter the olive is and what it must go through to be useful. If you were to pick an olive from the tree and try to eat it this month, its bitterness would make you sick. For the olive to be edible, it has to go through a lengthy process that includes: washing, breaking, soaking, sometimes salting, and waiting some more. It is a lengthy process to be cured of bitterness and prepared for usefulness. If we are to escape the natural bitterness of the human heart, we have to go through a long process as well … the process of being cured.

The final thing I want to consider about the olive is the best way to preserve it for the long run. It must be crushed in order to extract the oil. The same is true for us. The biblical way to be preserved is to be pressed. And being pressed can certainly feel like being crushed. But what about 2 Corinthians 4:8, where it says we are 'pressed … but not crushed'? Let's read verses 8 and 9 in the King James Version: 'We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed...' This was one of the biggest 'aha' moments for me standing in the shadow of the olive tree: crushing isn't the olive's end. Crushing is the way of preservation for the olive. It's also the way to get what's most valuable, the oil, out of the olive. Keeping this perspective is how we can be troubled on every side yet not distressed … pressed to the point of being crushed but not crushed and destroyed. I think I need to revisit these truths often:

When the sorrowful winds of the east blow, I forget they are necessary.
When I'm being processed, I forget it's for the sake of ridding me of bitterness.
And when I'm being crushed, I forget it's for the sake of my preservation. I forget all these things so easily. I wrestle and cry and honestly want to resist every bit of this. Oh, how I forget. Maybe God knew we all would forget. And so, He created the olive tree."

Consider ourselves the olive on the olive tree: we have hardships and we also have refreshing times, we have to go through processes, and we are pressed to the point that we are sometimes crushed. All of these things, however, make us who we are. We have to forgive ourselves for not being perfect, because perhaps the mistakes we make are the masterminds behind the amazing people we are going to become.

One of my favorite praise songs is Broken Vessels by Hillsong,

"You take our failure
You take our weakness
You set Your treasure
In jars of clay
So take this heart, Lord
I'll be Your vessel
The world to see
Your life in me"

Precious child of God, next time you find yourself mad and knocking yourself down, remember that the olive tree within you is just becoming more and more prepared. Jesus didn't die on the cross the day after standing in that garden for nothing - He did it because He knows you and the mistakes you are going to make before you make them. Yet, He forgives you. The Creator of the world forgives you.

"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace."

- Ephesians 1:7