Apples to Oranges…the fruit salad of life!

I found myself in the bathroom on Sunday getting ready for church and was thinking about this woman whom I admire and love. I had a moment and thought “Oh, to be her, to have her life!” You see I had a feeling she would not be at church,  but that she might be up in the NC mountains at her beautiful mountain home. I visualized her in the cool weather, playing, creating, drinking wine or coffee just hanging with her mountain friends while I was home, sweaty and hot. You know I always feel closer to Jesus in NC.

She also has this sweet husband with whom she and he refer to each other as “ONE”, holding two fingers up pressed tightly together. Now I find this funny since I am truly a ONE longing to find “the one” and be part of a two!….Oh yes to be her.

Then my thoughts went to something I heard about on comparing your life with someone else’s life. When we dare to compare we need to take a hard look and be willing to accept the other persons whole life, not just the good we envy but ALL of it. The whole ball of wax. As I thought of this there was an unbearable deep pain in my heart, you see my sweet friend and her husband lost their teenage son many years ago in an automobile accident. It brought tears to my eyes over my bathroom sink… for them…. and at the thought of losing one of  my own 5.

What an overwhelming moment of awareness….we all have blessings, joys and gifts… mountain houses, sweet husbands… 5 amazing children….they come as different things to each of us, but are gifts just the same….. as well as the challenges, difficulties and truly heartbreaking, unbearable moments that make us who we are and write the story of our lives. It brings to mind the saying “Be careful to hold on to the Giver not the gifts…” As so many things are given and taken throughout life.

Comparing is a tricky thing, because most of what we see of others lives is just a perception. It is what they present to the world and want us to see, not the ugly, painful, unhealthy and or unbalanced things that are usually stuffed in the “hall closets” of our life. Don’t kid yourself we all have a closet that has some “stuff” in it that we wish wasn’t there, much less want seen!

But today because I was longing for someones life I knew well, while longing I was taught something about comparing that I won’t forget….Love your friends, not their lives. That is their journey the parts you see and the parts you don’t see. Because most times the things you don’t see are what really makes them who they are and whom we truly love. Fall in love with your life, all of it, the whole ball of wax….and if we are honest, accepting and humble, our life makes us who we need to be.

Thanks Tyler for allowing me a early Sunday morning lesson in comparing, your beautiful life keeps touching and teaching all these years.