Ugly Comparisons

I love this quote.  Evidently it comes from Theodore Roosevelt.  
Which makes me think of Tom Selleck and Blue Bloods.......anyone else love that show? (Because you are the only ones that will understand the super leap my mind just made there.)
But nevermind.  I'm comparing.

When my husband and I moved to Shawnee almost 10 years ago some of our very first friends had us over.  This quote is framed on the counter in her bathroom. It was the first time I ever saw it {way before Pinterest}. Our conversation when I asked her about it was the beginning of a beautifully deep and resilient friendship that is forever dear to me. 

The ugly danger of comparison has been a topic in my learning and teaching and conversations ever since, but especially for the last several months. This morning while brushing my teeth and contemplating issues both deep and shallow, the subject of comparison had a head-on collision with some other things I've got going on in my noggin.....let's see if I can tie it together the way it worked over spitting and rinsing this morning. It starts with a little thread from some teaching about True Beauty....

1 Peter 3:4 says this in the Amplified; 
"But let it {our adorning} be the inward adorning and beauty of the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible and unfading charm of a gentle and peaceful spirit, which [is not anxious or wrought up, but] is very precious in the sight of God."

We get the "gentle and quiet spirit" thing wrong when we think it means to be quiet on the outside.  What it really means is to be quiet on the inside.  Just because a woman can sit quietly and control her words and demeanor doesn't mean she doesn't have a super F5 tornado swirling around inside.  The most loud, outgoing woman can be preciously quieted on the inside, a beautiful example of True Unfading Beauty....

So if Peaceful, Holy-Spirit Quieted insides are a measure of True Beauty; what is the measure of True Ugly?  Could it be a heart that strives? An anxiety-ridden, stirred up inside? A couple of years ago I wrote about peace and joy after Christmas.  I thought about those definitions, especially peace, this morning when all of these ideas were swirling around in my mind trying to find footing to start walking. For me; the quote should read:

Comparison is the thief of Peace.  

Here is how this works for me, and PLEASE understand I mean no meanness....truly! I would imagine you have your own versions of these stories. 



I read a book for minister's wives and am so blessed and perfectly encouraged until, UNTIL we get to the chapter describing how Sunday mornings should go. When the author describes her perfectly homemade Sunday morning family breakfast served on the back porch; I'm done.  And Comparison sets her teeth in.  I am alternately offended with the author and disgusted with myself because my sweet little PKs are the ones who know where to find leftover donuts in various Sunday School classes because they often get NO breakfast on Sunday mornings.  Seriously, I hope this is the closest to "gang leader" my kids ever get.  And of course, I have no idea what the preacher eats for breakfast because I'm not even awake when the preacher leaves the house on Sunday mornings {note to any new or unfamiliar readers - I'm the pastor's wife}. Comparison here ate me for breakfast for awhile. Yes that pun was very intentional.

Or how about this one (completely imaginary, of course)....I get on Pinterest to find an idea for a Christmas gift for my hubs.  I find a 12-day schedule full of gifts and romantic notions including a new water bottle with a hand-crocheted cover complete with a big button. I don't know about you, but comparison can have my heart in an uproar and on a  journey dating all the way back to "my Grandma could crochet, she even taught me once, she would be so disappointed that I can't crochet...." before I even know I've taken a step away from Him. {I may or may not have dug out my favorite Grandma King afghan to further ruminate in the comparison trap....wow, TMI for sure}. This is why comparison is so dangerous, it roots in our minds so quickly and then runs for our hearts.

Comparison takes a heart taught and comforted and settled by her Creator and stirs her up with anxiety and the pursuit of the unsatisfying, transforming Beauty into Invisibility.

Can you see it?  We need to stop it and we can. Comparison is not our friend, it's the opposite of us, opposed to the True Beauty God created us to bear. So let's be women of unfading beauty, who make Psalm 46:10 our goal to "Cease Striving and know that HE is God."

As we settle into knowing Him we know ourselves and each other.  We love ourselves and each other. We don't create friendships where comparison can thrive in competition, we create safe community where we can celebrate authentic and imperfect identities {which happens to be way more fun than trying to be a fake version of perfect none of us can even define}!

So this post has taken me way longer to write than it should've and of course I'm already being tested big time.  I keep swearing that I'm going to write an entire blog post on Ice Cream so that I can be "tested" on that subject.  But I won't, I'll just keep on blogging about what I'm learning in real life in the Real Word, and hoping we can learn together.  So I'm settling into refusing Comparison....anyone want to walk away with me?  Take that, Comparison.