Attempting to live and breathe for an audience of one
I haven’t blogged about this topic often, and in retrospect, I’m not sure why. (It’s my blog; I can say whatever the hell I want.)
Millions of women go through the same thing I go through each month and they seem to be just fine in public. Sometimes I cannot go out in public because I’m so affected. Continue reading “Christian and Childless, Not By Choice”
jeal·ous [jel-uhs]
–adjective
Lately as I’ve been convicted by my burgeoning jealousy on a number of things, I am reminded of my jealous God—not in the sinful, human sense but in the Biblical sense as in definition number six above. But I think His jealousy also ties into definition number five: the Lord is vigilant in guarding the hearts of his people.
How in the world is this part of enjoying God? Well, the things I’ve been desiring haven’t been bad or sinful things, but my attitude toward not obtaining them has been wrong. Then I think of how God is jealous for me—in the pure and righteous sense—vigilant in guarding the affections of my heart and intolerant of anything that leads my heart away from Him. Recognizing this forces me to repent of the temporal things I have been jealous of and turn myself toward the eternal God.
A wife who is jealous of her husband (or vice versa) isn’t a bad thing. It’s right for spouses to be intolerant of unfaithfulness. And likewise, so it is right for the God of the universe to demand (actually, He commands) all of my affection and competing with nothing else.
In my opinion, it’s nice to be loved and wanted that much.
I always compare myself to other people. It’s something I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember. However, I just recently became aware of it during the summer.
I was speaking to a friend about a topic—I don’t remember what it was; it doesn’t really matter—and she flat out said:
“Why do you keep comparing yourself to other people?”
I didn’t have a concrete answer then and I still don’t have a concrete answer now.
We all compare ourselves to others to some degree. As humans, we tend to look at those who are more monetarily well off than us with some envy and those who are less monetarily well off than us with either sympathy or contempt (usually not envy). But for some (like me), it’s quite the obsession.
Perhaps this is because I failed in the area of attracting friends at a young age so I always felt like I lacked the necessary quality to become the ultimate friend. I looked to others and thought, “They have a lot of friends. If I were just like them or if I had this one quality, people would like me more.” Since pre-school, the question “Why don’t people like me?” has plagued me. As a young child, it was a legitimate question, especially when I was double-crossed by the girl I considered to be my best friend. Now that I’m older, it’s more of an irrelevant question since the people who like me significantly outnumber those who do not but because I zeroed in on my foes (so to speak) as a child, it is a terrible habit I’ve retained into adulthood.
There was also the pressure to always be number one in school. When an intelligent rival knocked me off my top-of-the-class pedestal, I became competitive. And that is my first vivid memory of truly experiencing envy.
Now, envy is second nature to me. Continue reading “The identity of comparison”
A friend I have went to NYC recently and met up with a few friends. She explored the city, took lots of pictures, and seemed to have a blast.
Then I found myself thinking, “Why don’t I still live there, Lord? Why am I not there?”
Of all things, I wasn’t jealous because she was spending time with people she cared about nor was I jealous that she had a good time.
I was upset not because she was in New York but because I wasn’t.
How pathetic is that?
In recent months, I’ve been struggling with the issue of identity:
I thought I’d let the New York thing go. It was a big struggle when I moved to Kentucky considering how much I hated Kentucky but I’ve been content in Philadelphia. So why do pictures of Manhattan and Brooklyn get me nostalgic for the days of going to NYU and attending my old church in the quaint section of Brooklyn Heights? Why? Would I trade what I have now (a husband who loves and cares for me) for what I had back then (single, depressed, no one)?
I’m a fool so I struggle with this.
I suppose what makes things harder is that the prospect of living in New York ever again is about as likely as the prospect of living in Kentucky again. Zero. I never loved Kentucky, I never grew up in Kentucky, Kentucky was never my home.
Sara Groves talks about “Painting Pictures of Egypt” and “leaving out what it lacked.” Perhaps I’m doing that with New York. When I think of living at NYU, I don’t think of the time I wandered dark alleyways at 2 or 3 am in the morning, hoping I’d get raped or murdered. I don’t think of how I frequently walked the Manhattan streets alone and lonely, eyeing couples and friends with jealousy because I possessed neither of those things. I simply think of the exhilarating feeling I’d get when I walked to class near Washington Square in the winter while flurries dropped just because I lived in New York.
If you asked me which city was the best in the world, I’d tell you New York. I just love that place.
However, I feel terrible because my friend was having a wonderful time visiting places and friends and the main emotion I could muster was jealousy. And like the fool I am, I had no words for her other than “I’m jealous.” Those words started out as a figure of speech but then evolved into actual jealousy. She didn’t warrant that. My sin and identity issues shouldn’t be her problem.
So it’s back to the drawing board yet again. For all my nostalgia, I’m putting my primary identity in the wrong thing. My primary identity is not native New Yorker. My primary identity is Christian. And whenever anything or anyone dethrones Christ; it’s wrong and it’s sin. And I need to repent.
This Journey Is My Own 