Permission Granted Be Who You Were Made to Be and Let
Go of the Rest
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permission slip to discover who we really are, so we can be our whole
selves in our real lives.
DANEEN AKERS , author of Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints
ZONDERVAN
Permission Granted
Copyright © 2019 by Melissa Camara Wilkins
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ISBN 978-0-310-35357-7 (softcover)
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Epub Edition September 2019 9780310353584
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Interior design: Denise Froelich
Cover design: connie gabbert | design + illustration
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For Dane,
and for Abigail, Owen, Audrey, Sadie, Eli, and Evelyn.
You are all the best .
Contents
1. I Am the Worst: Permission to Be Human
2. This Is Why You’re Not Getting Better: Permission to Crack the
Shell
3. Less Busy, More Being: Permission to Stop
4. About That Fire: Permission to Belong to Yourself
5. Patience, Kindness, and Vitamin D: Permission to Change the
Equation
6. Through the Big Yellow Doors: Permission to Know Who You Are
7. The Risk of Yoga Pants: Permission to Show Up Anyway
8. Pressing the Pause Button: Permission to Be Here Now
9. That Means You’re Doing It Right: Permission to Un-Meet
Expectations
10. The Distraction Is in the Details: Permission to Turn Off the
Spotlight
11. The Impossible Discipline of Rest: Permission to Drop the Ball
12. The View from Above: Permission for Imperfection
13. This Isn’t About You: Permission to Know Your Assignment
14. How You Know You’re Human: Permission to Be Real
15. Kate at the Coffee Shop: Permission to Try Again
16. Try Saying the True Things: Permission to Choose Vulnerability
17. The Wisdom of the Crowd: Permission to Find Your Voice
18. Do This First: Permission to Draw a Finish Line
19. I Have Other Gifts: Permission for Celebration
20. Here I Am: Permission to Be Present
21. Grace in the Mess: Permission to Offer More
22. Forget the Map: Permission to Be Who You Were Made to Be
23. These Are the Questions: Permission to Be Free
Acknowledgments
Notes
CHAPTER 1
I Am the Worst
Permission to Be Human
Life is complicated. What I’ve always wanted life to be is . . . simple?
Simpler, anyway. I’m not talking about the kind of simplicity that comes
from giving away half the furniture and painting the walls white, or sitting
around on an empty beach all day, though that doesn’t sound so bad. I just
mean I’ve always wanted to feel like I had it all together, like I was
qualified to be a person. But no. Life has always been complicated, and
most of the time I was pretty sure I was doing it wrong.
In fact, I had a charming personal mantra that went like this: I am the
worst. It was like an affirmation, except the opposite. Some people say,
“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and I have what it takes.” I said,
“Ugh, I should have known.”
My phone is out of power? I am the worst at recharging.
Sauce on my shirt? I am the worst at spaghetti.
What was that guy’s name? I am the worst at remembering.
Everyone else seemed so confident about existing. Yes, they seemed to
say, I do take up space on this planet and that’s cool.
I, on the other hand, was running late, wearing the wrong shoes, and
anxious about whether the twinge in my side meant I was dying of an
undiscovered illness, or if I’d just strained a muscle by sneezing while
reaching for my sunglasses. In other words, everyone else was pretty much
okay and I was kind of a mess, so everyone else was better and I was the
worst. This was basically a mathematical law. Or at least logic.
Sorry to be slow to reply. I am the worst at email. Or texting. Or
commenting on things. Or remembering that we are in the middle of a
conversation.
Am I in your way? I am the worst at predicting where other people will
want to walk and preemptively choosing another place to stand. So
sorry. I’ll move.
I’m sorry we’re late. And that I tried to sneak in without being noticed—
with all six of my kids. We had a minor emergency involving a hair tie
and raspberry jam. I am the worst at getting out the door.
And if you’ve ever in the history of the world left me a voicemail, I will
never know because I am the worst at voicemail. I will see the red dot
and want to get rid of it, but that is where my skills end. I will never
listen to the message, and I will never call you back. I have no idea
how to do those things, and I don’t even want to learn. I really am the
worst at phones.
If you say it with a half-smile and a shake of your head, it sounds more
like a fun status update and less like final judgment.
I said yes when I should have said no? I’m the worst!
I missed something, I overlooked it, I forgot. I’m just the worst.
I don’t even want to get out of bed. I’m so tired. I’m the worst.
I can’t handle this. I’m not good enough, I’m not strong enough, I can’t
do enough. I am out of everything. I can’t breathe. I’m the worst.
I was judging myself so other people wouldn’t have to, as a helpful little
service to us both. I was deciding I came up short before anyone else ever
needed to measure. I thought that was my job, because I could see the truth
about myself, and the truth was that I had a whole bunch of not-perfect
going on inside. I had a whole bunch of not-perfect going on outside, too.
The truth looked, to me, like a giant list of things to work on. The least I
could do was call it what it was: the worst. (You’re welcome.)
I did understand all the things that were expected of me. I could see all
the Life Rules; I’d just never been able to follow them all—I couldn’t
follow the rules about looking just right and not being too weird, or the
rules about not taking up space (did I mention the six kids?), or the rules
about buying all the right things. I’ve always had way too many feelings to
follow the rules about being “low maintenance” or quiet or go-with-the-
flow. I couldn’t do any of that, but I could at least let you know I
understood the program. That was how I made up for not fitting into the
system. It was like an existence tax. The worst .
Being the worst is exhausting. That’s what I was thinking about when I
went to hear my friend Jessica speak at her church. I have an on-again, off-
again relationship with church. For as long as I can remember, I’ve
understood myself to be a child of God, known and loved. I like Anne
Lamott’s explanation about God: that we might call God “the animating
energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in,” or “something
unimaginably big, and not us,” or goodness, or the divine mystery, or the
source of all things, or, as Lamott writes, “for convenience sake, we could
just say ‘God.’” I’ve always found God to be a source of comfort, but I
haven’t always found churches to be quite as welcoming. (And if church is
hard for me, as a straight, white, married, middle-class woman, I can’t
imagine it’s a whole lot easier for anyone else.) At its best, church is a
beautiful thing—a community of people who gather to remind each other of
who they are, to learn and grow together, and to practice being a loving
presence in the world. So I kept trying.
Jessica and I weren’t exactly friends yet, but we’d met a couple of times.
I knew her background was in social work. I knew she was going to be
talking about brokenness and shame and God and connection. When she
said brokenness , I understood her to mean all the things that made me the
worst . Being the worst felt like being broken.
I saw the email invitation and thought, I’m in.
I like the idea of working toward my own health and wholeness. Doesn’t
that sound good? But if you’re working on becoming more whole, that
means you’re walking around aware of your brokenness all the time. You
see all the gaps and untidy corners, all the dark places and sticky patches
that still need to be worked through. It’s complicated. If you’re going to
make things better, you have to be aware of what needs fixing. And I was
very, very aware.
What were you supposed to do if you could see the truth, and you
couldn’t fix it? What were you supposed to do if you knew you were not
