The Death and Rebirth of a High Achiever

I used to be nourished by the milk of High Achievements.

I let it be my heartbeat, my smile, my surging energy. In fact, I considered it my identity, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly.

I scurried from club to club, climbed from title to title, persevered in the testing to get high letters of the alphabet and good reports.

Honor roll.
Track captain.
Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper.
Never-miss-a-mass Catholic girl.
Noble Air Force Academy appointee.
Half of the cutest high school couple.

I was the queen weaver of a masterpiece woven into a flawless resume, but it all hung on fragile, twisted thread.

What is more, I count it all as loss compared to the surpassing greatness  of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
-Philippians 3:8 (NIV, emphasis added)

Here now, knowing my best friend Jesus Christ a little better since the days of an achievement-defined life, I see that list above and see them as mere inked up lines in my journal, measly words empty, strung together in a superficial compilation of just stuff.

How little, I laugh, How little is this compilation of feats compared to the story of my life at this moment, this very moment where I am saved. Alive and saved through Christ.

Once again, it sings beautiful harmony with the verse that I have appointed as my own personal verse to hold near and dear, a verse that was the strong roping of the lifeline God threw me to pull me out of near-death anorexia:

For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
-1 Corinthians 2:2 (NASB)

New purpose.

New meaning.

Those accomplishments once so sweet and pleasing are only so if they are filled, brimming with Christ. Yet at the same time they are so hollow and dead compared to the life that Christ offers. How beautiful to be insignificant in my actions!

Not at al to say I've renounced trying or doing or achieving. On the contrary, I do these things fueled by the whirlwind of living and breathing and smiles and laughter and grace and forgiveness that is Christ's new liberation as I follow the Lord who is and does all.

Fearless.