It's funny how a day when someone I love dearly and have known since I was a little girl tells me that I'm an inspiration to them can be the same day that I'm sitting in my room texting a girlfriend telling her I envy her. A day when people have done their best to build me up is the same day that I'm sitting here feeling envy, feeling like I'm not good enough.
Comparison. I don't think we fully realize how dangerous it really is. It will destroy you. If we let it, it will burn out the light that is within each of us.
The crazy thing is, the people we catch ourselves playing the comparison game with are often the people we don't know intimately. They're the people you call friends, but not good enough friends that they run to you to tell you the bad pieces of their lives, because they have friends that are closer to them to fill that role. And for all you know, they're as envious of you as you are of them, just for a different reason.
No one's life is picture perfect, even when it seems that way. We all have demons, insecurities, baggage that we hide in the corner because we all just want to be liked. We're all broken. And that brokenness that we know lies within us and try so desperately to hide is what shouts inside our minds that if people really knew us, they'd run. The sin of this world has convinced us that no matter how hard we try, we're never going to be good enough.
I make a concerted effort to be real with people. To be the same friend to Matt and Ryann as I am to my Reformation brothers as I am to classmates as I am to people I randomly meet in the Student Center. And I know that that's a good thing, being authentic, not being two-faced in a world full of people that most would tell you not to trust. But sometimes, I worry that it's a mistake, that that's what scares people off, that maybe it really is my fault when friends leave with no explanation (or a hurtful one).
And when they do leave, that's when it gets bad. That's when I start envying friends I know are far from perfect but who feel like they have everything I want, that maybe if I could be like them, like the girls I know who have this infectious way of making everyone love them, then maybe people wouldn't leave. But the truth? The truth is that I am not responsible for the hurtful things people say and do, that I am no more responsible for their choices than anyone else is for the mistakes that I have made. The truth is that the Lord made me just as I am for a reason. The truth is that I won't always get it right, but I love people the best I know how. And I am blessed to say that I have many, many people around me who see that and understand grace enough to give it to me when I inevitably mess it all up.
All that comparison does is overshadow God's perfect plan in His creation when He made each of us as unique, gifted, individuals, and takes our focus off of who we are in Him. It has broken my spirit on too many occasions. I don't want to let it do that anymore.
The Lord says that we are enough. We are enough because we are His. I'm going to work on not just believing it, but believing so deeply that it's in my heart and soul as part of my understanding of His love. I pray that you are able to do the same.
"You are beautiful. You are smart. You are funny. You are kind. You are unique." - Jon Jorgenson, The Anima Series
I love you Squirrel.
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