What eats your lunch?

Today is November 8, 2012

I sit here and remember that in November 2011 I realized just how much the little monster called comparison would eat my lunch. Not only did it eat my lunch but it popped the bag it came in.

November/December had always been a tough time of the year for me. My parents living so far away made it hard because I knew in my heart that my mom was decorating for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The last 10-15 years she has really found her inner Martha Stewart. I felt like I was missing out on that with her. That is a really fun thing for me...decorating. I call her on the phone and she is at Lowe's finding cool things for her porch or at Michael's finding some neat tree decor...anyway, I found myself envious. Envious because I wanted to be there to help. Envious because her house was so beautiful. I found myself lacking in the matchy/matchy christmas tree and table centerpieces, etc. I found myself comparing my house to my mom's. I compared...I compared...I compared...I lacked...

I wanted to be able to decorate like this:

But in my mind it really ended up like this:

I spent a lot of time comparing my house with my mom's or my friends. What my house looked like all decorated at Christmas wasn't good enough because it wasn't decorated just like such and such. No matter what I bought or rearranged, it just wasn't good enough.

How many times in our life do we do that? How many times do we compare what we have to someone else?

Our marriage isn't good enough. Our clothes aren't good enough. Our kids don't behave good enough. blah, blah, blah! Men have this issue too but us ladies wear the crown for it most times.

Let's take that crown off.

This is what my christmas tree looks like...

It has mismatched ornaments made with love by 4 children that adore me. It is put together by a man that works hard to provide for his family. It is in a living room in a house full of love, compromise, sacrifice, forgiveness, fun, laughter and hope.

How does anything compare to that?

I hope your christmas tree looks like mine. I hope your living room looks like mine. I take a small amount of pride knowing that someone out there could look into my windows and compare their life with mine and long for it to be theirs :) My life is perfect just the way it is.

Guess what? So is yours. No matter where you are in life, it's ok to be there.

If you are at rock bottom...thank God that you can only go up.

If you are on top of the mountain...give God that shout of triumph for the strength it took to get you to the top.

If you are going around the mountain for the 5,215th time...thank God for the lessons learned each time and wisdom to make this the last one.

More than anything...Don't let the comparison monster eat your lunch. Find what is great in your life and thank God for it.

I read this quote and it is so true “Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you than you.”

Love who you are...Love the life you live!

No other life can compare!