Sisterly Competition

 I wish I wouldn't  be so sensitive to it, but I am. I am an adult and still so very aware that I try dang hard to “even the playing field,"  cut the competition and make sure that no one is more special over the rest. 

I’ve reflected/ prayed these weeks about where this comes from and my mind takes me back to life growing up. I have 5 siblings and one thing that I am working and being healed through is the pain I've felt  because I was their ‘special needs’ sister. I took a lot of time from them--while other siblings ran and wrestled together , mine did homework in physiotherapist waiting rooms. While other siblings played together,  shared chores and responsibilities mine were left to carry walkers up staircases and make sure my leg braces were on me.  For the most part they handled things well and were and are a good support team, but even now I can sometimes work so hard to make sure that I don’t get all the attention on a video call...or make them feel like I do!  As if I even had that much control over what others feel about me?! *Laughter and  sassy eye rolls* I over extend myself often just so others won't feel left out, guilty or second best.  Still though I am beginning to discover and know the kiss of God on my unique role in his Kingdom and ask for the grace to move forward if people like me or not.

I still loathe the sense of jealousy in the air when it comes from the hold of competition and pride. I feel it in myself when I see others getting what I desire and gifted with what I don’t have. It’s here that I remember to grab hold of my own heart before God. It’s here that I remember  the Scripture stories of Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hagar, Hannah and Peninah, Jacob and Esau, David and Saul. Stories where claimed gifts and walking in obedience for one lead to resentment, bitterness,  deceitful scheming,  hiding  and dethroning for the other. 

As I’ve grown up I always thought comparison to be sinful...something that kills the joy. It can be, but what if noticing the similarities and differences can help you to grow? What if you begin to walk closely with someone and their gifts are similar to yours so that you learn how to humbly take the lead and when to let them take it now and again? What if you begin to walk closely with someone and their gifts are so different than yours that it makes you want to learn and grow...to get stronger in your 'game'?

I also know the sting of missing out...of 'being benched' 

The real life sting of seeing that you just can't do it!  Someone will always sing better, climb stairs faster,  teach better, dance better and will run faster than you.  Someone will be married and you are left unmarried.  Someone will get the promotion and you will get fired.  Someone's kids will be better behaved in the grocery store while yours run wild and cry super loud.  Someone will get pregnant and you will struggle to conceive or miscarry.  In these moments when I see what is true in me and sense it maybe in the "air" around me----I have a choice.  Will I let my envy "drive the bus" in my life? Will I allow how others respond to me keep me from being who I am called to be before God?  Ahh this is awkward...ahh this is sad because I really do long for a world where there is an even playing field...regardless of the capacity and gift...that we all share in the prize of God's glory without fighting...without minimizing the other and with a miraculous Spirit- birthed humility that honestly says "I see the image of God and gift in you...and will choose to cheer you on win or loose.  

May it be so...and may it be in me!

How can you see competition/envy in your own heart and what is a way to stomp it out in your life today?