Comparison

                I've had one of “those” mornings.  The baby woke up an hour earlier than normal on my only day of the week to sleep in. Then, while I was eating breakfast (after everyone else was finished), he leaked through his diaper.  As I was giving him a bath, his 20 month old brother was playing in the toilet…twice!  Then, when I got the brother undressed for a bath, he peed on the floor.  This was all by 10 a.m. Yikes!

                As I headed off to the shower mumbling, “Mommy needs a time out,” I wished I was just about anywhere else in the world.  I walked into the bathroom, and the Lord stopped me with a question, “Would you love your other children more if you didn't have Emma?”

                That question hit me like a ton of bricks.  Of the answer to that question is that I love all my children the same.  Sometimes I get frustrated with them because of the terrible choices that they make or because they continue to do the same naughty things over and over, but I would never intentionally favor one of my children over the other ones just because they got into less trouble.  I want to train them all up in the way they should go, but I also want all of them to feel loved and accepted for who they are.

                Recently I saw a quote on Facebook that I wish I would have saved, but it was something like, “Don’t get so caught up in raising a ‘good’ child that you forget that you already have one.” It is so easy to see the negative, but we can’t be parents who fail to see the positive. 

                As I stood in the shower pondering these things, I felt like the Holy Spirit began to minister to me that this is the heart of the Father toward His children as well.  It is easy for us to compare ourselves to other people in the faith. “That person has kids who are always well behaved” or “she prays an hour by herself every day and I can barely get out a ‘Lord help me!’ every morning” or “that family has more kids than we do and they NEVER miss church.”  That is a trap and a lie of the enemy.  If we, as earthly parents, know that we would never love one of our children less because their behavior wasn't as good as the other ones, then why would we ever expect God to love us less because there are others out there that we feel are more “spiritual” or more put together than we are?

                Sometimes we are harder on ourselves than God would ever be on us.  I know I have the tendency to regard my flaws more than the positive things about me.  I ask the Lord for forgiveness, but then I go on beating myself up about it.  Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old.  Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it?”  God is constantly trying to bring us to new levels, but if we are caught up in remembering our past failures, we won’t even recognize it.  If we are to forgive our neighbor “seventy times seven” for the same offense, shouldn't we forgive ourselves as well?  If we were to “love our neighbor as ourselves,” how loving would that actually be?

If you struggle in this area, as I do, consider asking the Lord to help you learn to see yourself as He sees you: loved, accepted, and righteous.  Ask Him to help you forget the former things and to see the new things He is birthing in you.  After all, His heart toward you is the heart of a parent, and His “thoughts toward you are of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).