I had a conversation with my husband today about my family. I have been trying to understand things for the longest time. However, now that I am older, I understand my family more than I ever did and more than anything it is a great lesson about love and comparing your life to other people. On my mother’s side of the family, many of her brothers and sisters as well as my own mother just didn’t feel very good about themselves. I don’t understand how this works, but when people hate themselves, they often try to act like they think they are fabulous people and that everyone loves them. Then, they spend their life feeling jealous and envy whenever they compare their life to anyone else and they do it all the time. My mom and many of the people in her family did this all the time. It was really impossible to connect with any of them because they never wanted to connect with anyone on a real level. The only thing they ever really wanted was to use me to feel better about themselves somehow.
I truly believe that we are all here to walk on our own paths. I believe that we can learn from one another, but I know without a doubt I should never ever compare my life to someone else’s life. It never works. And that lesson struck me hard today. My husband and I were driving past a school, and I told him a story about some students I had heard about. The parents abandoned them when they were in sixth grade. My husband said that it should make us realize that as bad as things were when we were kids, we were blessed. I was mentally, emotionally, sexually, and verbally abused as a child. Just because my parents didn’t abandon me doesn’t really make a difference. I met a blind man once. I realize that my life is blessed because I am not blind, but that doesn’t really make a difference. It doesn’t change the circumstances of my life.
I don’t want to be feel gratitude for my life because I compare it to other people’s lives and think mine is better than theirs. Just like I don’t want to feel sorry for myself because I compare my life to other people’s lives and think mine is so much worse than theirs. Everyone’s life is different; there is no comparison.
What I can do is understand all the blessings that God has given me in my lifetime and understand the beautiful gift that God has given to me in my life itself. With that understanding, I should feel great gratitude. And when I have struggles, I don’t need to compare my struggles to other people because God gives me my own unique cross to bear. I should be thankful for what God has given me and thankful for His guidance and His strength in dealing with those problems. When I look at my brothers and sisters in Christ, I don’t need to compare their lives to mine, but what I can do is have empathy for them. When I see that they have blessings in their lives, I can feel love and happiness for them and when I see that they have struggles and their own crosses to bear, then I can feel love and patience and understanding because I know what it is like to struggle with life. I don’t need to judge them; I just need to love them. That’s why God commands to love others as you would yourself.
I don’t need to feel superior or inferior to anyone. We are all unique like snowflakes or grains of sand or drops in the ocean. And more importantly, just like drops in the ocean, we are all part of one big ocean, if I love my brother, I love myself. And if I hate my sister, then I hate myself. We are all one. I hope that someday, we will understand that.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
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