"I look around and see girls in my hometown with husbands and houses and kids. I'm living with my parents and the only friend I have in that town is my grandma. I don't want the kids for several years, that's for sure, but I want the husband and the house," I confessed during the last few minutes of my counseling session.
"But at the same time, there are girls I went to high school with who would die to be in my shoes. I got my master's degree, I have a good relationship with my family, and I'm further along in my career than I thought I'd be at 24."
I started listing off scenarios.
I have a friend who would love to get to go to work every day, but she has to stay home and take care of her kids because she'd lose money if she worked because of the cost of daycare.
There's a girl who would love to be in my shoes and be super single because she went through a messy divorce at 21 that left her paralyzed and afraid to date again.
I guess someone could look at me and think that it's great I get to live with my parents because she was bounced from foster house to foster house.
I know a girl who wished she was like me and never got invited to parties in high school because some guy took her virginity after one too many beers.
For every situation I listed off that someone could want what I have, I could name off a dozen more of girls who have what I want. It's a vicious circle of having but wanting and wanting but having.
Comparison is the thief of joy. When we look at what she has, we lose track of what's right in front of us. However we are humans who are prone to playing part in the comparison game. Some of us struggle with it more than others.
Comparison has always been one of my weaknesses. Whether it be my lack of athletic ability versus my sister's knack to run, my ease in academics versus the girl who always had to try really hard to get Bs and Cs, or my college roommate who planned her wedding as I was never asked on a date, I compare to tear myself down or make myself feel better than someone else.
The realist in me will always say that no matter how much we surrender our comparing ways, it will always exist until we take our last breath. She will always have what I want. Right now, it's the girl with the house and husband, but one day it will become the girl who conceived easily, the girl who gets to live down the block from her sister, or the girl whose cousin didn't receive that diagnosis. Granted these are all hypotheticals, but she will always have what I want in some shape or form.
And I will always have what she wants. Right now, I have the career, four grandparents who love me and are active in my life, a reliable car that I don't ever have to worry about breaking down. I am sure there will be things in the future I have that she will want.
A mentor once told me that everything we long for on earth points of our deepest, truest longing which will be unfulfilled until Heaven. That is Jesus himself. All of the things we want point to our desire to be with Jesus in a place where sin doesn't exist. On this earth, we will compare because we live amongst sin.
But one day, we will hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." He will be everything we want, and we will finally have Him in full.
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