Jealousy and Joy

Part of growing up, particularly in your 20's, means discovering the best and worst parts of yourself. As I get older I become more and more secure about who I am as a person, what my gifts are and what I'm good at. At the same time, it's also a season where I am beginning to recognize the severity of my faults. I may be young and still have a lifetime of learning ahead of me, but after 26 years I've managed to spend a lot of time with myself and figure out a few things in the process. 

 

This week I've discovered both sides of the coin, seeing faults in myself that I've always known were there to some extent, while also seeing some of the unique gifting God has blessed me with. 

Growing up with very little I have always found it far too easy to compare myself to others, using their life to gauge how much or little I had. Not only that, but I use others to gauge my weight, my beauty, success, intelligence, gifts...you name it, I've compared it. In comparing myself I not only judge others but myself. Somehow I am always better or worse than someone else. 

This I hate about myself. 

So, after 26 years and a whole lot of comparisons, I've realize that I am a jealous person. I envy the lives of others, being ungrateful for what I have been given. "The grass is always greener on the other side" but it's true if you were in my shoes. At least that's what motto I've become victim to. It's like I have this perfect life in my head of what I have and who I am perceived to b and I'm fighting for all of it to be true. Instead of living the life I have and embracing all of it's parts, I see others and wish I had what they had. The job. The schedule. The boyfriend-fiance-husband. The kids. They home. The adventures. The life. In the process of wanting all those things I have become completely ungrateful for the life I have. It's an ugly thing and an ugly place to be. 

On the other side of the coin, I have moments watching other people "succeed" in life where I could not be happier for them. I literally have so much joy for them I cannot contain it, nor do I know what to do with it. In those moments---a new job, marriage, child---nothing about my life matters. All I can think about is how exciting this is for them, what a blessing it is to be a part of it, and how I cannot wait to see what God will do in the lives of these friends, near and dear to my heart. 

The joy I feel in these moments is totally selfless. 

Reflecting back on both emotions, it's easy to choose which way I'd rather feel. Jealousy or joy? It's not even a hard question. No person on earth would choose to feel jealous. But the thing is, although joy is the obvious answer, choosing joy doesn't give you all of your heart's desires. Choosing jealousy totally eradicates the possibility of joy. Choosing joy means giving up all sense of desire replacing it with a love that is selfless. When jealousy is present there is no joy, when true joy is present there is no jealousy. 

If joy is the obvious answer, why do I so often fall back on jealousy? Like I said, it's an ugly emotion no person wants or wants to be around. Honestly, when jealousy is present I don't even want to be around myself. 

I think it's time to choose joy. It may not be easy -- if it were I would have done it already. I don't honestly even know how to do this fully. But if the first step is acknowledging and accepting where my heart is at, then I can at least say I've done that. First step: check. Second check: Lord help me. 

The 2nd Greatest Commandment

One of the greatest, most memorable and eye-opening thing I learned in college also happens to be the hardest thing for me to live out. It's a great piece of knowledge, something everyone should know. To know it is wise, to live it even better. It comes from the passage in Scripture about the greatest commandment...

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 

Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." 

Matthew 22:36-40 

It's a passage many of us have heard, practiced, memorized or had drilled into us..."love your neighbor as yourself"..."love the Lord your God with all your heart..." but many of us miss something vital in those words. Most people see that we should 1) Love God and 2) Love your neighbor. The thing most people miss, though, is that in order to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must first, love ourselves. So the order really goes...

1) Love God
2) Love yourself
3) Love your neighbor

The first time someone pointed this out to me, actually, the ONLY time someone pointed this out to me, I was dumbfounded. As a self-proclaimed church kid I was completely sold on the concept of loving God and putting everyone else first. Seems accurate, right? I mean, after all, God did send his Son to the earth to die for everyone else....Jesus was the ultimate example of humility.

The way God worked it out though, is that to love others I must love myself. If I can't love myself, how can I be an example of love to others? Personally I find it difficult to love others when I don't love myself because when I loathe myself the way I often do, I get so wrapped up in my own pity party that I don't even have time to think about others (unless of course I'm comparing myself to them, which only elicits more hatred).

Like most people, I go through phases. This last week I was in a "I hate my life and every part of myself" phase. I had every reason and no reason to feel the way I've felt. I've spent most of my days insecure about how I look and what I have, feeling totally inadequate as a woman, a christian, a friend and human. I've cried. I've worn workout clothes to avoid my closet and the inches hidden around my waist. I've complained and been irritated and vented to friends, my mom, my sister.... I've been in one heck of an ugly phase, but I think I'm moving on. It's time I start loving myself for more than what I look like, and at the same time...it's time to learn to love how I look no matter what I'm wearing, if I've worked out enough this week, no matter what the number on my scale says (which I actually don't even know because I refuse to step on it).

I want to love me because God loves me. Because he has grace on me and loves me despite my flaws. He loves unconditionally and it's time I start doing the same.

Love Just.