*Envy* and how it hurts

I've created stories that weren't true - trying to be liked.

I longed for attention and to disappear, all at the same time.

I felt average as can be with nothing especially extraordinary about me.

Sibling-less growing up.  Feeling so alone.  Graced with a beautiful house to grow up inside.  Feeling so lost.

So many other families and friends were more attractive, popular or fun than me.

I hesitated to sing out loud in the school choir.  I shirked away from dancing at school dances.  I didn't even try to talk to the cool kids.

Girls were mean to me.  It could be that I allowed them to be mean.  Or maybe I was mean right back at them.

The days of growing up were hard.

And then I grew up and started telling only true stories.  I tried not to be someone I wasn't, even though I still longed to be noticed and invisible at the same time.  Average followed me into adulthood until God showed me I am unique.

Envy switched sides.

Or, maybe it was the first time I noticed it on the other side.

Friends and even family made it apparent that they saw something about me that they thought was better than them.  Although I never intend it, they have made it so.  And my body or my life became something out of reach for them - an idol of sorts.  They shirk away from me this time and feel threatened.  And I cry.

I feel just as insignificant as anyone.

My body couldn't ever be as perfect as I still sometimes want it to be.  Happiness is sometimes an all out wrestling match with myself.  I still envy other people's lives.  I still have painful situations with friends who I think are too perfect.  I still have a lot of hurt about a lot of different things.

I make mistakes.

I wonder what they could possibly see in me.  They have themselves so twisted.

People I've reached out to don't respond to notes I send them.  Some friends don't invite me over anymore.  For some reason, some people leave me alone.

They think I don't need anyone.  They are so wrong.

There's nothing particularly different about me than anyone else.  I sing outloud now and have discovered I like how I sound.  I dance all wildish and my son asks me to join him.  I've found Peace and Love and Grace and Freedom.  But that didn't come from me.  It's not about me.

I'm no better than anyone.  No one is any better than me.  We all have issues and we all get twisted up.

Envy can hurt to the core.  It can dissolve relationships and shred hope.  Envy can create monsters and nightmarish memories that haunt deep into life.

We can all learn from each other.  

I'm grateful I have people to learn from, and people to help.

Mostly, I'm grateful for the humility of imperfection to sit and chat with a friend - all in my naked self, exposed by peeled off layers of pride.

And, I'm grateful for a Father who loves me just as I am, in all of my uniqueness.

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Gratitude List...

...finally okay with me {most days}...

...signs of Spring that encourage us for what is to come...

...hearing the sweetness of affection coming from broken me...

...a different season - one with activity and adventure...

...new friends who speak truth with {Grace}...

...{Grace} for a mother and daughter...

...having {Grace} recognized from me, in spite of me...

...a curiosity to try new things...

...excitement for the unknown future...

...surrendering my will for His, alone...

...snow on the cusp of Spring to remind us that seasons-lengths aren't ours to measure...

A *Different* Story

Fear leads me to want control. I nearly ache for the comfort of being in control. At least trying to be in control. By putting in effort and trying with all my might, I am trying to show that I am not complacent and that I am able to do much. The athletic company, Nike resonates with me because of the company's motto - Just Do It. As if I have to do something and doing nothing means I am lazy, or something.

Something happens, though, when fear tries to control. Confusion grows like an ugly mushroom in a front yard. It's there and try as you might to make it disappear, it shows up in another place. No decisions are made at all and lying down in the yard feels practically impossible to do with all the fungus growing around. Eww. Confusion and mushrooms are equally gross. Envy is just as ugly and I think it, too, stems from fear. Envy grows when the fear of not being good enough is thought after comparing someone else's life - their story - with your own. Try as you might, though, their story just isn't your story.

In what feels like the biggest moment of awareness yet, I have realized that I have lived with incredible fear, and not only that I have tried to control it. I have thought I am not good enough the way I am. I have envied other people's stories. It has become a real thought that my story must look like the stories I see around me. Along the way I have not discovered what I even want my story to look like. I have followed the thought that my life should be a certain way. Realizing that I cannot make my story like the stories around me, I have tried to reduce my fears of making a mistake or not getting it right the next time, and I have focused on (trying) to control just about everything. And yet, I cannot control any thing.

I didn't have the Story Book Fairy Tale when I delivered my son or went home as a different person - to live now as a mother. In looking at some people, I have thought maybe I did something wrong in not having the experience that they had. After all, shouldn't a husband and wife gaze lovingly into their little baby's eyes and just be in awe together at the little miracle that is now theirs to raise?! I didn't have that. I felt lonely and yet I couldn't dare mention it. I didn't dare let my husband help with the baby - our baby - during the night. After all, isn't it a nursing woman's responsibility?! And shouldn't someone get some sleep?! And shouldn't a wife have a good meal on the table for her husband when he got home from work, even if it is only the first day she has had a child to take care of all by herself?!

Expectations.

Fear of not living up to them.

Controling to reduce the fears coming true.

This leads to a life of Exhaustion.

This is a life just spinning its tires, and yet...

staying in the

same spot.

I am realizing that life doesn't come with a rule book. There isn't a standard list of should's that everyone should follow...not even anyone with her first name Amy and her middle name Renee. And I am also realizing that no one is any better than me. No. One. And, with that...I am no better than any one else. No. One.

All of these realizations are colliding and I am overwhelmed with one thing more than anything...Trust steps out. Trust surrenders the should's and Trust receives Grace - Grace to live a unique story that doesn't compare with any other story out there. A unique story. Trust acknowledges fear and gives it over to a greater purpose. Trust understands that even in the fear, there is much to be learned.

In thinking about all of this I am changed. Instead of having envy for someone else's story - stories I only know in part - I choose Gratitude. I am grateful that my story, as different as it is from all the stories around me - is capable of helping others, even as I struggle to live it. For, it is in the struggling itself - in the dark shadowy valleys - when I learn about Trusting the most.

Sometimes in those dark valleys when I struggle to live my story and when the idol of self that I have created is broken in a million-gazillion little pieces, I become more like who I was meant to be all along. In the pain I am able to focus more on my story and find me without the distraction of Envy or Fear.

So, as my Father holds me around his neck, like a lamb who wandered away and whose legs the Sheppard broke so she wouldn't wander away from Him again, I am so close to Him that I feel safe and secure in myself. And it is then when I realize that the point most likely has nothing to do with what I do in my job, or whether I have another child, or if I look a certain way, or what I weigh, or how fit I am, or even whether I have credit card debt. No. The point is that every part of my story is used to lead me more closer to Trust. And in honoring my story I find much Rest. Deep Rest. And incredible Freedom!