Recently my family and I moved back into my old childhood neighborhood. The one where I racked up a million miles on my bike, roamed the woods for countless hours, attended block party bonfires complete with hotdogs and s’mores – the neighborhood that colored the background of all my growing years. And now I’m back with my own 4 kids, my childhood bedroom just a walk through the woods away. It’s both surreal and comforting all at the same time. My husband and I have moved many times over the course of our marriage, each time for a different reason. I pity the page of my friends’ address book where our last name resides- it’s surely a scribbled up mess.
I actually grew up in a family that never moved once – their local roots grow deep and strong. In fact, it was those beautiful roots that drew us back to Georgia a few years ago. At the time we were living in the blue mountains of North Carolina and absolutely loving it. However, as time moved on and our family kept growing, I started to look at the big landscape of my children’s lives and I started to compare. My kids had no extended family surrounding them; I grew up with my Grandparents next door and my Aunt and Uncle in the house behind me. My kids had to travel several hours for every holiday or just celebrate with only Mom and Dad; my holidays were sprawling with aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, all who lived within a 10 mile radius. My kids wouldn’t have family cheering them on during their sporting events or attending their recitals or being able to watch them blow out candles on every birthday; I was accustomed to having my own personal cheer section during my soccer games and dance performances.
It was playing a round in this tricky game of comparison that eventually brought me back to Georgia, but it was God who truly brought me back home – back to the freedom of the Gospel. Looking back, I was so busy trying to replicate my childhood for my own children, that I had forgotten who the real author of their lives was – a creative Father who is not bound by patterns or uniformity, but rather One who sees it fit to give no two zebras the same set of stripes.
While it is good to glean wisdom from the lives of others, it is not good to try and actually copy the lives of others. God whispered this truth into my heart ever so gently one day when I was worrying how my children would be affected from all the moving we’ve done through the years, how it was so unlike the wonderful, family-surrounded childhood I had – “Rest my daughter. Do not try to write your stories on your children’s lives. I am writing a new and beautiful and glorifying chapter just for them. Rest and let me write.” So I’ve given Him back the pen. And what freedom I have gained!
So maybe you aren’t trying to recreate your own childhood for your children, maybe it’s something or someone else…..trying to parent just like her, trying to find a church just like the one you were raised in, trying to be a wife just like your favorite mentor, trying to craft a home that looks just like that magazine, trying to get involved in ministry just like your friends do. Whatever it is, it is taking our eyes off the One who matters and misplacing value where it doesn’t belong. Our God is the ultimate Creator – full of creativity and originality and inspiration. He does not show off his glory best via copy machine, but rather through precious, one-of-a-kind originals. And you, sweet sister, you are one of His masterpieces! Your faith is not like any one else’s. Your family, your children, your giftings – they are all as special and unique as your fingerprints and when we try to compare them to others, we not only diminish our God-given beauty, but we also hinder the unique calling God is placing on our lives. Paul would never have heard God leading him to preach to the Gentiles had he been caught up in trying to preach just as Peter did to the Jews.
And the wonder in all of this is that it’s actually not about us at all. It’s all about Him. Jesus. Our Father. The Holy Spirit. Christ is like that clear prism you learned about in science class – He is the rock and when light passes through Him, it bursts into beams of rainbow, infinite shades of blues and yellows and greens and reds. No two shades alike and yet each refracted through the prism and each one needed to complete the rainbow as God designed it.
So friends, keep turning to wise, godly believers for encouragement, advice, and knowledge, when led by the Lord. But refuse to play the comparison game and don’t get caught up trying to replicate anyone or anything just for the sake of doing so – let our Father, who designed over 400,000 unique species of flowers, be the author of your own unique story. It is like no one else’s and it is needed for the glory of His Kingdom!
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