We are the same.  And we are vastly different!  We have so much in common, and yet our individual experiences can be as different as night and day. Like a grove of aspens, we all come from the same source, but our individuality is the thing that helps us to accomplish our individual missions.  No one else can be me.  And no one else can be you.

So why is it that we as women, often compare ourselves to other women, usually setting up a skewed comparison between our struggles and challenges and the other person’s strengths and good fortune (or so we like to think of it.)

Sometimes this can be an attempt to excuse ourselves.  We think that the girl next door just doesn’t have problems!  She has it easy, her husband is so supportive; her children are well-behaved; her health is exceptional; she doesn’t know what depression feels like; her extended family is always there when she needs them; she hasn’t ever had to struggle with a weight issue; she has beautiful hair; need I go on?

What a sorry, painful mental and emotional state that thinking can create! And what a downer it is to live beside!

Everyone has challenges. No, they aren’t the same as ours, but they are there. And no, there isn’t a great equalizing event that makes everyone on the same level of difficulty! And we are wishing amiss if we long for that to happen.

I saw a little girl on a video recently who was born without arms and with only small legs with feet on the end.  Would we wish that everyone had such a challenge?  No!  Do we covet her journey through life?  No, surely it will be fraught with challenges that you and I know nothing about.

But she is beautiful and growing and looked happy to be alive! And it sounded as though she had a wonderful mother who is teaching her to see the world and herself through the lens of gratitude and joy.  What an incalculable blessing.

The truth is that in order to do what we were born to do, we will have to have a crystal clear vision of who we are and of what it is that we are to accomplish!

Crafting a new vision of ourselves, like any worthy endeavor, takes effort!  And sometimes correction and often repentance, that great scriptural, you-are-freed-from-your-past gift that gives us hope and emboldens us with a clean slate!

If I could fashion a pair of lenses for you, I would give them the magnification to create a sharpening perspective on all of the ways that you are blessed and supported!  And I would want them to help you to see the beauty that I see in you, and better yet, the great vision that God has of you!

But I can’t fashion yours, and you can’t fashion mine.  We each have to deliberately craft the “lens” we wish to use that will help us to begin “seeing” our blessings and cultivating our feelings and expressions of gratitude. Exactly the opposite effort of making comparisons isn’t it? And which takes more effort?  Comparing and finding fault and injustice and self-pity can come as easily as moving down a slide, without tensing a muscle or lifting a finger.  We can master the looping mental conversation that counts all the ways we are put upon, all the reasons we can’t succeed and of all of our perceived faults, without hardly trying.  But creating, that takes courage and decision making and boldness and muscle!

With God’s help, we can be emboldened every day to adjust our vision.  We can accommodate our learning with constant prayer, vision boards and vision statements; with declarations and daily logs, and by surrounding ourselves with positive friends and enlightening media.

I pray that you will feel your burdens lifted and your sights raised by your decision to keep moving forward, today and everyday!

I’m rooting for you!

Love,

Jacque

 

 

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