The Comparison Game

There have been very few times in my life that I have been truly happy and content with the person I am. I have been briefly content with how I look... I have been fleetingly happy with my personality... I have very rarely looked at myself as a whole and have thought, "Gosh, there's nothing I'd want to change about myself." And I realized recently that it's all because I spend A LOT of time comparing myself to others.

The Comparison Game I play goes something like this: I see a woman walking by me and I think, "I'd love to be that thin. She's so fit and pretty." And so I start working out and striving to lose weight. Then, I watch some moms out at the park playing soccer or running around with their kids, and I think, "I should be more like them. I should be more active with the boys." Then at work, I interact with some of the amazing women leaders we have and think, "I need to be more like them. I need to be more focused on A, B, C and D to become more inspiring, more influential." And let's not forget all the wives out there that are awesome at serving their husbands! I think, "I am a terrible wife because I don't get up early to make my husband breakfast. I don't iron his shirts or write love notes to him everyday. And I certainly don't cook him spectacular meals everyday." The list goes on and on. I find myself comparing me to EVERYONE about almost EVERYTHING.

Whether it's weight, fitness, looks, parenting, being a confident woman, cooking, being a wife, and everything else out there, I tend to look at what others are doing to gauge how well I am doing. And, when I compare myself to others, I almost always feel like I am failing... Because I am not them. I have strived to be someone else because somehow I think it will make me a better me. But here's the thing, all of that comparing, all of that changing to be like someone else doesn't make me a better me. It makes me a better someone else. And that's not how it should be... At ALL!

I was designed in a very specific way. I was gifted with certain things, and NOT gifted with certain things on purpose. God gave me my brown "has a mind of it's own" hair and hazel eyes. He designed me to be very fair skinned, who never tans. He made me to have four beautiful babies, and a body to carry those babies. (And a body that didn't bounce back from those four beautiful babies.) I was wired in a way that makes me independent, strong-willed, and strategic. Even the things I see as significant flaws, such as my fear of crowds and uncomfortableness in social settings, are things God designed in me just as He saw fit. And, He wants me to embrace all of that. He wants me to be happy with who He created me to be, flaws and all. Comparing myself to others doesn't help me embrace me... It makes me want to change me...

I am learning to be inspired by others without comparing myself to others. It's a fine line that I struggle with... Being inspired by someone gives you the excitement, the energy to better yourself. NOT bettering yourself to be like that person, but bettering yourself to be more of who you already are. Inspiration leads to growth and maturity. Inspiration does not lead to me changing myself to be like someone else, but to build upon the person God has created me to be.

So, my hope and my focus moving forward is to stop comparing myself to others... Yes, there are some super amazing moms and wives out there. Yes, there are some VERY FIT people out there that look amazing. But, I am not them. I am ME. And my choice to be fit will be based on shaping MY body to be the fittest, healthiest it can be. My goals of becoming a better mom to my boys will be based on what my boys need and what works best in my home. And NOT based on what other moms are doing. Striving to be a better wife will be based on building a better relationship with my husband, not based on the fact other wives do it differently.

Somewhere in this life, I need to be MORE than just "okay" with who I am and how I look. I need to truly embrace ME.  To love the person I am, no matter what season of life I am in. To want to grow, to be shaped, to mature NOT because I am striving to be someone else, but because I want to build upon what God has already done in me. I am me, flaws and all. The less time I spend comparing myself to others, the more time I will have to be the person God created me to be.

Giving Up Control and Trusting in God

There comes a point in everyone’s life that we realize we have little to no control over our lives. We reach a point where we cry “uncle” and choose to either give up or to hand our lives over to the one who created us. We choose to let go of the control and somehow learn to enjoy the journey we are on. We stumble, we stray, but ultimately we view life (and the junk that comes with it) with a brand new perspective.

It took me until I was 28 before I realized that I ultimately did not have control over all of the things I so desperately tried to control. And the way God showed himself, the way I learned that very little control was mine to have, was filled with heart ache and pain I never knew existed. I felt unprepared for the journey God had planned for me, but as the months and years unfolded, I learned He knew what He was doing. Don’t get me wrong, I doubted and questioned. I threw temper tantrums and hissy fits. My strong and incessant need to be in control got in the way often. But somehow, I always managed to come back to Him and the knowledge that He has a much better plan for me than I could ever imagine.

The plan I had for myself was a good plan. It was a plan filled with a husband, children, a job I loved, friends and ministry. I had gone to college and gotten my degree in Behavioral Science. It was a perfect fit for me, as I have always been intrigued by behavior. This degree was my doorway into working with children with Autism. I spent forty hours a week in children’s homes teaching them skills and building relationships with their families. It was hard work, and often times not very rewarding, but I loved my job. I thought I was on the right track…

And then my personal life began to come together. I dated, courted and then married a man that had the same kind of plans for life, filled with children and friends and ministry. When I married Kevin, I moved to Pennsylvania (which was where I went to college and swore I would never return to). Life was good. Kevin and I started talking about having children and it wasn’t long after that we were pregnant with our first son. We could not have asked for a better life. Our plan was falling into place and we thought we had it all together.

It wasn’t until about 6 months after our first son, Patrick,  was born that I started to realize I didn’t have as much control as I thought. We had learned that we were expecting baby number 2, and this was definitely NOT part of our plan. I was scared, my husband was freaked out, but we came to a place where we were excited for our unexpected baby. 4 months into that pregnancy, we were reminded again that we have no control… We lost our only girl to a rare genetic disorder that we knew nothing about. The grief over her loss was immense. It was a time we had thought we would never survive.

But we did survive. In fact, several months later, we were ready to try for another baby. Our first son was almost 2 years old when Tyler was born. Our family was growing, we had survived a very heart breaking loss, and I thought we had it all together. I thought I knew where our lives were headed. Boy was I wrong… I had no idea how greatly our lives would be turned upside down in the coming years. I was oblivious to the journey that my family and I were about to embark on.

In May of 2009, the life that my husband and I had planned and were looking forward to came to a halt. The dreams we had for our second son seemed shattered as we learned that he had significant delays. At no point in our planning did we ever think that daily meltdowns, weekly therapy, and a constant struggle to connect with our son would be our norm. The very Autism Spectrum I had spent years working with was now what I was living with.

The journey began as I sat in the exam room with my beautiful one year old Tyler, listening to the doctor talk about how my son was growing well. He was 98^th percentile for both weight and length, and was a strong, healthy boy. And then the doctor asked me questions about Tyler… Was he communicating his needs? Was he babbling? Was he interacting with his big brother? How was his temperament?

As I sat there answering the doctor’s questions, I knew in my heart that my baby boy was not like other babies. He SHOULD have been gesturing for what he wanted. I knew he SHOULD have been babbling. He SHOULD have been interacting with his big brother. But, he wasn’t. Rather, he was screaming for a large chunk of the day, uninterested in being consoled, without any attempt to show us what he wanted or needed. We couldn’t cuddle him, couldn’t hold him. No sweet moments of connection.

Sitting at the doctor’s office, I knew we were heading into a world I was only familiar with in a professional way. We were heading into the lifetime world of Special Needs. The Autism Spectrum and all the jargon that comes with it became a very real part of our daily life. And as we navigated the beginning of this new way of living, my husband and I learned so much about ourselves, our family, and most importantly about God.

There were so many times that I would sit and try to picture our future. But I couldn’t see it. All I could see was the screaming child and a lifetime of struggles. The initial weeks were filled with tears and anger and this overwhelming sense of loss. I didn’t lose my son physically, like I had with our daughter. Rather, I lost the hope and dreams I had for him. The idea of him getting married someday disappeared. Succeeding in sports or school or music seemed unimaginable at that moment.

If that wasn’t enough to swallow, I began to think about what others were going to think about our situation. What were people going to say about Tyler? How were they going to look at him? Were they still going to love him? Were our family and friends still going to love us?

And then in the middle of one of my hissy fits, God’s presence flooded over me… I could feel a peace I hadn’t felt in months. I had no answers, no fixes. But I began to see our situation differently. I began to see that although this time was horrible that there might just be something greater happening. In that moment, I could see that God was still at work in us. We still had a future. Our son still had a beautiful future and a purpose here on earth.

We were not in control. Our plans were not the plans we were now living out. I fought hard to grab onto any control I could find, but in the end, I had to cry “uncle”. I had to accept I had no control over the big things. And I had to make a choice… Either to give up or to truly hand over my life to God. I chose the latter, and that began a beautiful journey of love and peace and abundant grace from God.

Throughout the last 7 years, we have been reminded over and over that control is not ours. Only a month after our second son turned one, we welcomed son number three. He originally was not part of our plan, but once he was in our arms, there was no way we would have wanted things to be any different. Our third son, Zachary brought new challenges, as we juggled three young children and therapy and normal life. And just when we thought we had some semblance of control back, God surprised us with our fourth son, Benjamin. We had four boys in four years, and we had certainly learned that our plans were not quite God’s plans.

As Benjamin reached his first birthday, we had begun to see some similarities in his development as we had with our second son. And low and behold, as I sat with him at his one year well child visit, I heard the familiar words of “he has some significant developmental delays. Let’s have him evaluated.” But this time was different… I had already accepted that I had no control. Over the years I had learned to step back and see what God might be doing. And most importantly, I had learned that no matter what, God had my back. And He certainly loved me, my husband and my sons. And He had plans for each of them.

Here’s the thing… I still have my moments of wanting control (more than I’d like to admit). I still struggle with fully accepting that God’s plan is way better than anything I could plan. But, the woman I am today is not the same scared mama that I was five years ago. I can look back on these years and see a dramatic change in who I am and in how much I trust God. It didn’t happen overnight. Each day it took taking that small step of faith to just get out of bed. It took family and friends wrapping their arms around our family even on the worst of days. It took tears, and prayers, and yes, some hissy fits, to truly see God in everything. And He IS in everything.