The Crime of Comparison

I’m sure we’re all quite familiar with the Theodore Roosevelt quote, “Comparison is the thief of all joy”. Immediately I read it and think, “duh”, it doesn’t take much to understand the meaning behind the quote. When we allow comparison in to our minds, it’s easy to allow our joy to be robbed. We find ourselves in want, rather than thanksgiving for what we have. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp, mostly because it’s such a FAMILIAR place to live. But, how often do we allow the truth of what the former president said to permeate our hearts and minds and change the way we live?

     I’ll tell you how often I do that…never. See, it’s one thing to know and understand something, it’s a completely other thing to actually allow it to influence the way you live.

     I have this competitive drive inside of me. If you really know me, I’m sure you’re not shocked. Constantly, I have to win. Everything. Always. I mean, I even compete with myself to see if I can make it through the grocery store in a quicker amount of time than last week. It’s ridiculous. And I know that. But I can’t help myself. I like to compete, and I like to compete well. It’s probably part of the reason why, after 25 years of life, comparison still crushes my heart and suffocates my mind. It’s something I’ve struggled with since I can remember, regular comparison to everyone about everything.

Is my body better than hers?

Does my makeup look as good as hers?

Are my outfits as put together as hers?

Am I as fun and conversive as she?

Can I play better than she can?

Are my lessons as good as that other teachers?

Are my giftings and talents as prevalent as hers are?

     These thoughts I have that compare me to others, could go on for ages! I’m sure I’m not alone, so why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we pit ourselves not only one against the other, but against our own selves, and the God who created us?! Well, quite simply, because we are sinners, and this is our plight. But that truth is not an excuse to allow this problem with comparison to keep us captive!

     When I was 12, I read a story about Amy Carmichael (missionary woman to India, opened the way for Indian missions, she’s quite the lady). Her achievements, though astounding, weren’t the parts of her story that most captivated me. Rather, it was the story within her story, about a lesson she learned as a young girl. As a child, she prayed every night that she would wake up and God would have given her blue eyes just like all the other English girls. Each morning, she raced to a mirror only to be sorely disappointed when she discovered God had not answered her prayers and had left her with her dull, boring, brown eyes. Years later, she finds herself serving the Lord in India, taking care of street children and ministering to women. The government tries to pursue her, threatening her life, and the lives of all those she’s been in contact. With the help of the local women, Amy disguises herself by tanning her skin and wearing a Burka. What else keeps her and all the others safe? Her brown eyes that help her to blend in with all the other Indian people! God knew what He was doing when He refused to answer young Amy’s prayers in the way she wanted them answered. He had a plan to use her far beyond what she could see as a child.  Had she been given blue eyes, could she have been as effective in India? How quickly would she have been caught? Would India be opened for missions the way it was after her work? We can only speculate. But God knows. He knew just how He wanted to use Amy, even down to giving her those dull, boring brown eyes.

     And, He knows just how He wants to use you and I.

     At 12, this story struck a chord so deep in my heart; it has branded me and changed me forever. It was the first time I realized that God didn’t make us all unique just so we’d be different. He made us all unique because He’s given us each a special and independent task to complete.

     It’s easy to look at our own qualities and features that we despise the most and think, “that might have worked for Amy, but I’m sure God doesn’t intend to use these thunder thighs/ my inability to filter my words/ my stutter/ my curly hair/ my freckles, etc. for His glory.” So maybe you’re right. Maybe some of the features He’s given you won’t be as obvious a benefit in your life’s work as it was for Amy Carmichael, but is that any less a reason to praise Him for what He’s given you.

     God’s given you LIFE, and that abundantly! Sure, there are things we can all do all the time to improve parts about ourselves (workout, control your tongue, practice kind speech, do things to improve the way you work professionally, study more), and we should strive to be the best we can be absolutely! But whom are we doing these things for? Is it for the glory of us, being the best and beating the rest? Or is it for the glory of the One who made us, to be used for a unique purpose in the best possible way?

     Comparison can be a crime, it can rob us of our joy, but worse, it causes us to lose sight of the truth. That God has made us each special and unique, called us to a specific task, and designed us (every square inch of our body, every aspect of our character) for His perfect work.  

I Wasn't Praying for a Husband, but He Still Showed Up!

  While many of my friends were reading Wait For Me and donning their “True Love Waits” rings/accessories/t-shirts/stickers (the early 00’s were really the time for these Christian Pop pieces), I was learning the value of purity for more than just saving yourself for marriage. While the girls in my youth group traded stories of how they just “bawled for hours last night” pouring out their hearts in prayer for their future husbands, or how they were “burdened” to write letters to him expressing all of their feelings, I sat back and wondered when the Mother Ship was coming back for them.

  Maybe that’s a little harsh, I should tell you I tried. I really, truly tried to sit before the Lord and pray for my future husband, I have so many wasted sheets of journal pages that simply read “Dear Future Husband,” and then nothing. In the end, that’s exactly what I had…nothing. No words to pray over the mysterious “him”, nothing I was burning to express to him as we waited for each other. What an emotionless wretch I was!

  No, no. That’s not the case at all. As a little girl, I loved my Barbie’s, but the drama of the on-again-off-again Barbie and Ken relationship was too much for me. I ADORED my dollhouse. There, a happy, healthy, successful family dwelled and I imagined up all kinds of Leave It To Beaver scenes for my perfect little family to play out. When I got a little older, I enjoyed the pre-teen Christian fictions about courtships and love. In my teens, I was a dedicated reader of Brio Magazine (once a magazine for Christian girls filled with articles of missions, devotions, and dating).  See! My emotions were there! As was the deep-seeded desire to someday be a wife.

  I wanted to be married, so why couldn’t I just start praying for the man I was supposed to marry! Well, that was just it. See, in those times of sitting before the Lord, feeling like a pathetic loser because it was just so awkward to pray for someone I didn’t even know yet, God was showing me something else…What if what I desired, wasn’t a part of His perfect will?

  Nowhere in the Word of God, does He promise that we will all be joined in marriage (except for the grand marriage when Christ will come to collect His Bride, the church), but He does promise that He has a perfect and prosperous plan for EVERY SINGLE ONE of His children! (See Jeremiah 29:11)

Sometimes, that perfect and prosperous plan of His doesn’t include the things we desire, even most deeply, including a husband.

When the Lord challenged me with the earlier stated question, I realized something. Part of my problem with the “true love waits” mantra was that it was leading so many to pray and seek THEIR will for THEIR lives. What I desired, even more that my perfect dollhouse dreams becoming my own reality, was to be in the center of the will of my Father. I wanted HIS will for the life HE gave me.

  I immediately stopped my pitiful attempts to pray for the husband I wasn’t even sure was coming, and began praying for the Lord to show me His will for my life and to prepare me for whatever that included.

  My desire for marriage didn’t fade away. In fact, it increased. I struggled a lot in early adulthood as I watched so many of my friends marry young. I wanted that too. But, because of what the Lord had revealed to me all those years ago, my heart was stirred to stop longing for my own desires and to seek again the will of God.  Because we serve a very faithful God, the more I prayed to know His will, the more He moved me to find it. Eventually, one of the moves He told me to make, lead me to meet a man named Joe…

  The Lord worked a lot of things out in both our lives to bring us together, and now we’re husband and wife! As I look back at our story, my most favorite part is that I don’t see God giving me what I wanted in bringing me into marriage with Joe, rather, I see God doing exactly what He promised and that is, showing me His perfect and prosperous will for me! And isn’t that the bigger picture for life? Isn’t that what we were made for? Isn’t that what we should so deeply desire?

“For everything was created by Him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him.” –Colossians 1:16

  Friends, we were made FOR Him, FOR His glory!! Sometimes that means His glory is achieved through our covenant of marriage with another person, and other times this means He’s most glorified in us when we’re working solo. Either way, His glory should be our aim. He is good!

I know I’ve been long winded here, but I’d just like to end with a few clarifications.

  A.) I’m not trying to bash the “true love waits” campaign; I think it’s a nice idea. I know the Lord is pleased in mine and my husband’s purity entering into marriage, because it’s a testimony to the way we tried to love and cherish each other’s hearts. True love, really does wait.  

  B.) If you are praying for a husband, I’m not trying to mock you. Keep making your requests known to God, but I do ask you to check your heart. Are you praying for a husband because you find your worth in marriage, or is your heart really set on God’s ultimate will?

  C.) Marriage is a beautiful thing that God has created. I want everyone I know to get married just because I love being married so much! But church, we’ve got to stop. Do you know why it was so easy for so many young girls in my youth group to pray for their future husbands? To write love letters exposing the most intimate parts of their delicate and precious hearts? To hold their breath in anticipation every time a new guy walked into service thinking he just might be the one to put a ring on their finger? It’s because somewhere along the line, we made marriage THE thing. I’ve listened to many pastors tell me from the pulpit that I just need to wait patiently on the Lord for my spouse to come. THESE ARE EMPTY PROMISES YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS MAKING AND CERTAINLY CAN’T KEEP. God doesn’t declare that those who are called to be given in marriage are more righteous than those who are called to work for His Kingdom in singleness, so where do we get off implying that’s the case? Church, marriage is an amazing gift, I’m blessed by my own marriage on the daily, but let’s stop praying for all of the young people and singles to find their spouses. Instead, let’s start praying for each other differently. Let’s pray that EVERYONE would seek and know the perfect will of God for their lives whether single or married, so that they might BEST glorify the Father.

  I wasn’t praying for my future husband to show up. I was moving in the direction of God’s will for my life, trying my best to listen and obey, and in those moves God lead me to Joe.

4 Reasons Why You Won't Homeschool Your Children...And Then the Truth

I’ve been talking to a lot of people who have really strong opinions in the area of home schooling, yet they’ve never been homeschooled and never knew a homeschooled kid growing up. It wouldn’t be so bad, but then they find out I’m a product of homeschooling through my primary education and they don’t even pay attention to the first hand accounts of my own experiences. So I’m taking to the blog world.

There are a few disclaimers I’d like to lay out before we begin:

a.) I’m not writing this to say the EVERYONE should home school their children. I’m a teacher at a traditional school and I see the value of education in this form.

b.) I’m not writing this to bash traditional schooling, again, I’m a teacher. Please review disclaimer a.

c.) I do understand that not every home school kid had the great experiences I had, and this is not a blog to demean their hurt from experiences of their own. I am simply writing this because I’m tired of hearing some half-baked, poorly researched ideas of those who, frankly, don’t know what they’re talking about.

So here are the top 4 reasons why many will not home school their children…and then the truth of each:

1.  They’ll turn out to be social rejects that melt in the sun.

       It’s commonly thought that kids who are homeschooled either become or begin as those who don’t fit a similar mold to others in the peer-group. That they like the stereotype portrayed on TV or in books, actually wear Dungeons and Dragons capes and LARP in the park. Sometimes, that might be true, but didn’t we all know that same kid in high school? And he wasn’t even homeschooled…weird.

The truth: Sure, some home school families choose to separate themselves from most of the outside world, even (in extreme cases) demonstrating semi-cult-like behaviors, but they’re the rare exception. MOST home school families find ways to get their children outside (san cape) and explore the world around them. They even…wait for it…INTERACT with other human beings!

  

2. They won’t gain all of the experiences (or learning the important skill of basket-weaving) they need for the real world like they would in traditional school.

          Some people really claim this as a valid point to make. They think that home school kids are just holed up in their bedrooms all day calculating some crazy physics problems that will someday send rockets into space (because that’s never going to be useful) and they never get to make social exchanges, experience the value of winning and losing, or learn how to work and exchange ideas with others. If you’re home schooled you’re an island and apparently you’ll never learn problem-solving skills fit for the real world.

The truth: As a home school kid I faced bullies, put up with mean girls, developed great life-long friendships, learned how to win with grace and lose all the more gracefully, developed critical thinking skills (thanks goes out to my mom for making even spelling review time a philosophical discussion), and worked through problem-solving situations (this time I have to thank Aaron for never letting me win at Risk). I don’t buy this argument, not for a minute. I believe that home school environments can allow children to develop these and many other real-world applicable experiences. In fact, I think they’re even better when these experiences come their way because they have more one on one time WITH THEIR PARENTS (not strange teachers, faculty, school nurses or coaches) to discuss the situation at hand and how their choices impact their lives.

3. They’ll miss out on field trips and other fun, “school-y” things.

      Popular opinion says that home school kids are at a disadvantage because they missed out on that trip to the dairy in second grade, or they never experienced passing out Valentine’s to all the other little school kids. Shame on those home school parents for scarring their children for life! How will they ever make it as adults?!

The truth: In some cases, popular culture might be right. Maybe some HS kids never did visit the dairy nor did they ever experience the joy of bringing home dozens of boxes of those sugary hearts on Valentines Day. PSA: they were probably so busy doing other fun things, they didn’t even care. And now, they’re productive members of society. Another shocker, I did get my trip to the dairy, and every Valentines Day until the 8^th grade I gave out valentines to all of my friends and ate dozens of boxes of candy hearts. And I was homeschooled. How can this be?!

4. They will never get into college or find a job because no one hires home-schooled freaks.

          Talk in public circles has grown on this subject. While it actually is somewhat true that some colleges are considering home school students to be less valuable to their community than kids coming from traditional schools, mostly nothing is happening about it. Nonetheless, people will find any reason NOT to home school their children and this is another one of them.

The truth: Home school kids win again! They’re at an advantage here for several reasons:

1. People actually DO hire homeschooled kids and because their academic day isn’t stretched to fit some ridiculous 8-hor time frame, they can (and many do) begin working at 15 with more flexibility and availability for work hours. So, they’re learning work ethic and how to participate in a work environment earlier than their traditional school counterparts.

2. Home school kids test higher on entrance/exit/standard tests. There’s a lot of differing in opinions as to why this is, but from experience, I can say it is true and much of it has to do with the fact that such little time is wasted in a school day.

3. Because of #2 they’re already set up for success and have higher graduation rates than their traditional school peers. Statistics don’t lie (except when the do) but these ones are legit. More homeschooled kids graduate college than those who come from public or private schools. Again, lots of ideas floating around the public square, but I’ve got to think again that those one-on-one discussions about problem-solving had to have something to do with it.

If you’re still with me, I thank you. I hope that at the very least, you chuckled through some of these misconceptions and notions. Just as at the beginning I’d like to re-iterate, I am a teacher. I love to teach, and I see so much value in traditional schooling. But I can’t forget where I come from. I was a home school kid until the 9^th grade, when I entered a private high school and flourished thanks to the hard work and dedication my mom put in to making sure grades k-8 were packed with knowledge and experience.

I wanted to take a knock at some of these ideals because I think it’s important we address the real issue. It’s not for these reasons you’re not home schooling your children, YOU JUST DON’T WANT TO. It’s too much work/time, you’re afraid you’re not smart enough; you don’t want to ruin your relationship with your kids (another lie but that’s separate issue), etc. And I’ve got to tell you all of those reasons are JUST FINE. We all have different calls and convictions before the Lord and we need to stand by them. But lets stand by them honestly and stop making lame and even hurtful excuses and falsities as to why we aren’t doing what other people think we should. Rather, let’s stand in confidence knowing God calls some of us to teach our children in the home while He calls others to endeavor in the workforce. If you’re among the latter group, I would like to thank you for standing by your convictions and entrusting people like myself, teachers, with your precious ones.