comparison – Growing By Surprise

Why Can’t I Have Your Life?

Do you suffer from life envy? Sometimes I do. This morning I browsed my Facebook news feed and instantly started feeling depressed. I saw posts of everyone’s “perfect” life and thought, “Why can’t I have your life?”

One woman shared beautiful photos and a description of their family’s advent tradition. I thought, “Yeah, well, try that at my home. One kid would be fighting over who got to light the candle and another would be fussing about having to sit and listen to an advent devotional.”

Another woman posted photos of her perfectly decorated mantel. It looked like something out of a magazine. I scanned my living room with toys strewn around, stockings lying on the floor because we have no mantel, and a variety of mismatched decorative Christmas items placed here and there. I promise you, the only way photos of my house will be in a magazine is if someone wants to show examples of homes that need decorating makeovers.

As I scrolled down, I saw a post about a family who was beginning their Christmas break already, two weeks before we will start ours. I could feel my face scowl a little as I thought, “We are so behind and my kids need so much help, there’s no way I can take a break.” Her declaration reminded me how overwhelmed I feel by my children’s learning disabilities and my heart sank a little thinking of everything I need to teach them.

Then I came to a photo of a woman standing in a beautiful house with a glorious Christmas tree. Her kids smiled and looked as if they were dancing joyfully as they trimmed the tree. My mind flashed to the terrible scene at our house just a week ago when our family attempted to decorate our Christmas tree. I won’t go into the details but it ended with one person crying, another person angry, and the tree was only half decorated. It certainly was not the joyous scene I saw on that Facebook post.

Can anyone relate? Do any of you peek into another person’s life and wonder why you can’t experience that same thing in your own life? I know I shouldn’t compare myself to others, but I can’t seem to help myself. And it steals my joy every time.

So what do I do? How do I move forward today when my head is already filled with such negative thoughts suggesting my own life is not as desirable, enjoyable, valuable, or maybe even as spiritual as another’s?

First, I shift my perspective and try to view all of this from the point-of-view of those other women. If I shared my thoughts with each of those women, what would they say to me? I imagine them shaking their heads, gently smiling at me, convincing me that their lives are not as wonderful as they might appear, and maybe even suggesting they sometimes envy my life. I recognize that the snapshots of people’s lives we often see are not their whole story. Everyone has messy moments, undesirable circumstances, and parts of their lives they would rather people not see. We all know, “we can’t judge a book by its cover.” Well, we can’t discern the reality of a person’s life merely by a Facebook post or even what we see in simple daily interactions. People’s lives are much more complicated. So I remind myself that the life I’m envying at the moment certainly also has it’s own share of hardships and flaws too. Nobody’s life is perfect.

Then, I remind myself of some of the beautiful things in my own life. Thankfulness is key to contentment and joy. I must be honest about the great parts of my life and purposefully notice the specific ways God has blessed me. I may not have a huge house, but I don’t have a house payment either. I may not have a fireplace with a mantel, but that just saves me from another household chore of cleaning out that fireplace. Maybe we aren’t taking a break from school at the moment, but I am very fortunate to be able to homeschool our children and have the flexibility many others don’t have. Our family isn’t doing an advent devotional this year, but the delight my kids show when they see Buddy Elf (and Cindy, his elf sister) doing various funny things around the house is precious. Our Christmas tree decorating night didn’t go well the first time, but our family reconciled, forgave, and tried again a few days later. (A spirit of forgiveness is worth more than gold!) We had a great time the second time around, and our tree is filled with ornaments of sweet memories. The joy of Christmas is still alive in our home, though it may reveal itself in unique ways. As I continue filling my thoughts with gratitude, the jealousy fades and is replaced with joy.

Finally, I center my thoughts on Jesus and His desires for me. When I assess my life, I must see it through His eyes, not the world’s. I must push aside all my preconceived notions of what is perfect, beautiful, and worthy, and seek only His will. When He looks at my life, what does He see? If I view my life as a movie or photo being critiqued by others, needing to be perfectly edited, staged, or cropped in order to be considered worthy, I will quickly lose focus, become distraught, and miss the Lord’s sweet gifts to me. I must live for an audience of one, only concerned with God’s perspective.

So as I begin my day, I let all those images of other people’s “perfect” lives drift out of my head. Instead, I allow God to whisper encouragement to me. He sees each moment of my life, from the chaos to the calm. He is there in the trials. He is there in the joy. He reminds me I am uniquely suited for my particular life, and my life is perfectly designed just for me.

Why can’t I have your life? Because God is good and your life wouldn’t be perfect for me! Now I am ready to cherish the craziness, delight in the mess, overlook the imperfections, and embrace whatever the day throws at me. After all, it is the beautiful life God has given only me, and no other. Why would I desire anything else?

A Little Progress Makes a Big Difference

Sometimes I look back at my year and wonder what I have accomplished. What did I teach my children? Am I challenging them the way I should? Am I meeting their needs? I see all the other homeschool kids their age doing amazing things–winning sports recognitions, performing in the local theater, skipping grade levels–and my kids are just struggling to read and write and still can’t ride a bike.

You see, with their rare genetic condition, my 2 youngest are so delayed in all areas that learning even simple things is a struggle. When you have kids that just can’t seem to keep up, it is easy to get discouraged and doubt yourself. Sometimes it feels like we are moving and moving but never getting anywhere. When we are in that season, it is hard to keep my resolve and be motivated to continue in this homeschool journey. The Enemy uses these slow seasons to attack my will, confuse my vision, and squash my enthusiasm.

So what do I do to combat this? How do I keep moving forward even when it feels pointless? I try to look for those small moments of progress. I force myself to pay attention to the little things, and God always delights me with something beautiful.

My son, James, has severe communication difficulties, still struggling at the age of 13 to even speak in sentences or be understood by anyone not very familiar with his special language. We work every day on speech therapy, and many days I see no change. But then it will happen. I remember one day noticing how he used a pronoun for the first time, saying “yours mommy,” as we discussed going to visit my mom later that day. I remember the first time James expressed that he was scared about something. Never before had he been able to communicate emotion to me. I was so excited he could tell me his feelings I almost forgot to deal with his fear in the situation. I try to listen for these moments when James will say something new and that is when God ministers to my heart and says, “Keep going, my sweet daughter. You’re doing a good job. Just keep being faithful and I will work the miracle.”

Mark Twain said, “Comparison is the death of joy.” Isn’t that the truth! The only way I can keep my joy in this difficult journey is by keeping my eyes only on Christ, never comparing myself, my kids, or my life to others, but rather focusing on the path God has designed for us. Instead of looking at what is not happening or what my kids can’t do, I must be consistently seeking to find the little moments of progress and make those become big reasons to celebrate. Only then can I experience the joy God intends for me to have as I help my kids grow one moment at a time.

Our God-Shaped Holes

We are always our worst critics and so often we overlook the beauty in ourselves that is so obvious to others. I think sometimes we fear that if we aren’t looking very good right now, if we can’t see the “fruit” in our lives, then we must be doing something wrong, that we are far from him. Have any of you ever looked at a rose bush that has just been pruned? It looks terrible. To the inexperienced person, you would see a pruned rose bush and walk right on by thinking, “That thing looks dead!” But a true gardener knows that it’s just in a certain season of life and it’s been perfectly prepared to produce even more beautiful roses when it’s time. An experienced gardener knows that pruning a plant allows nutrients to go right to the spots that need it. John 15: 1-2 says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

I remember a few years ago when it was a time of my life I had just started home schooling my kids and I was being handed a large dose of humility. Even after years of teaching experience and a master’s in education, I was at my wit’s end. Nothing seemed to be working. I couldn’t get my kids to do their work and they didn’t seem to be enjoying things the way I had hoped. I also was having difficulty controlling my anger at my children. I was praying daily for the ability to love my children and be a good parent, and I felt I was failing miserably. At the time, I was going through the study of Esther with my sister. And as I went through the study, I felt my eyes were being opened to all the nastiness that I had inside. I felt that nothing beautiful was being produced in me. I felt very far away from being anything like Esther, not even close to the Godly woman I wanted to be. I truly felt like I was being pruned and I was looking absolutely wretched. One day I shared this with my sister. She looked at me and said, “Oh no, Jenn. Just the opposite. I am seeing you just blossom,” and she shared with me how she thought I was doing a great job as a parent and she was seeing so much growth in me. You see, the pruning I was experiencing WAS producing beautiful fruit, but it just didn’t feel like it at the time…. You may not always feel it or recognize it, but you, too, bear beautiful fruit.

Yet we still often compare ourselves to others and pick ourselves apart, finding every teeny tiny flaw. We have a tendency to start trying to figure out what we need to do to fill the gap, what we need to change, what steps we must take to FIX THIS PROBLEM. But the truth is, these holes in our beautiful fruit, these huge gaps that we see on the tree branch where there just doesn’t seem to be anything good hanging around–there is nothing WE can do to fill those gaps. You might say those holes, those gaps, are God-shaped. The problem is we need God. I know it seems simple, but it’s true.

Let me tell you a story. On one Saturday morning, my sisters and I joined each other for coffee at Mom’s house. My sisters noticed throughout our conversation that I was not my usual self. Finally, they prodded a little, and I revealed what was troubling me. I felt an overwhelming burden that I had to take care of everyone in my life and didn’t feel I could have a rest. I explained how I wasn’t sleeping well because I was having my son sleep in my room every night. At the time, he had been having seizures and had recently been care-flighted to Dallas after a series of three life-threatening ones. I also shared with them about how I had laid my head down for just a few minutes to take a nap, and my son had run out in the street. I was the sole teacher in charge of my 3 kids’ education, the doctor in charge of giving everyone their various morning and evening medicines (including the very important seizure medicine), the alarm clock that helped wake my husband while he adapted to his crazy shift-work schedule, the nutritionist who attempted to provide everyone good food as much as possible, and so forth. You get the picture. From my perspective, I was a woman treading water and holding everyone else’s head above water. If I took a moment of a break, it felt as if they would all sink. I felt so responsible for everyone and so tired. I felt weak and desperate, seeing so much I needed to do, so many changes I needed to make in my life, wishing I could be a different person and manage everything better, and yet so incapable of doing anything about it. I was seeing all those holes in my life and believing it was all my job to fill them!

My sisters listened and comforted me. Then in a very clarifying moment for me, one of my sisters said, “Jennifer, you’re forgetting one very important thing—God. Even when you took a nap, God protected your son from getting hurt in the street. Even when your son stopped breathing during his seizures, God kept him alive.” She continued to remind me that ultimately I am not the one who protects my family anyway; it’s God. I had not realized I was making myself too important and not recognizing God’s awesome power and protection in my life. I slept so peacefully that night, trusting God to fill the holes in my abilities and resting in His strength. When we are so empty, we have to allow God to fill us up.

Yes, it’s wonderful to evaluate yourself and take stock of where you need to improve. Yes, it’s only right that we recognize God’s purpose for us in this life and work toward fulfilling it. Yes, it’s great to strive toward being an example of every single aspect of the Fruit of the Spirit. But if we get to a place where we’re feeling overwhelmed by being a “good” Christian, by doing all the right things, then we’re missing the point. God tells us “His yoke is easy and His burden is light.” When we feel we’re treading water, maybe we need to realize we’re not in as deep of water as we thought and just put our feet down and stand on God, the solid rock underneath our feet. After all, He is the one holding everyone up, not us. At the end of the day, we must simply rest in Him and praise him for all the mighty works He does in spite of all our failed attempts.