I'm Perfect.

NOT!

Yeah, I just totally went 1990's on ya! :)

But isn't this what we're all striving for?
Perfection?
Perfect body.
Perfect mother.
Perfect wife.
Perfect Christian.

That's fake.
No one is perfect.
It's superficial.
You're not seeing the real person.
The scars.
The warts.
The wrinkles.
The past.
The debt.
The emotions.
The sickness.
The addictions.
The home life.
The abuse.
The compromising.
The "what it took to get where they are".
The junk.

You don't see that. Because if you did, you wouldn't compare yourself to someone else. You wouldn't dream of what it's like to be in their shoes.
You wouldn't want their junk.
You have your own.

Ruth: yeah, she had it great, married to a rich man, great-grandmother of King David. Oh, wait--didn't her first husband die? Didn't she have to pick up scraps off the ground to survive? Is she the one that moved to a foreign country that considered her an outcast with her mother-in-law? Yeah. That's her.

Michel: a princess, born to a king, that later became a queen. She was the daughter of the chosen one of God and the wife of the man after God's own heart. Sounds pretty good, huh? Not really. She was consumed with jealousy and she was barren.

Esther: also married to a king and she was beautiful! That's how she won over her husband. But, wait--the fate of her entire nation was on her shoulders. She couldn't even speak freely to her husband without fearing death!

Rahab: saved when the walls of Jericho came down. Jesus himself is one of her direct descendants!  But when you read her name, you probably wondered why I didn't list her as "the harlot". The hooker. The woman that sold her body and NEVER, to this day, has anyone forgotten about it.

Mary: pregnant with the MESSIAH!!! How awesome would that be? Pregnant, she had to move to another country. NOT another state--country! She had her baby in a barn. She watched her son die for you---for you, to act the way you act and to live the way you live.

That mom you spy at the PTA meeting: yeah, you know her: beautiful, tan, brand new clothes on, skinny (even though her baby is still in a rear facing car seat), the one that has the beautiful family and perfect life. Her. The bulimic one. The one emotionally abused by her husband. Yep, wish I was her! Not!

What about the other mom you see? The one with the business suit on, nails done, perfect hair, one boy, one girl, luxury automobile, husband that worships the ground she walks on---depressed. She has to take a pill to get out of bed.

I have one better than that: the one that you see that seriously does have it all together--the one that is ON FIRE FOR GOD!!! And you know she is because she emanates it with every fiber of her being! She praises God for everything---even when no one is looking! She is unashamedly the epitome of what a real Christian is. She was molested her entire childhood. Still want to be her?

Not everyone's life is bad. This sounds like a chastisement, when I sincerely do not mean it that way. I mean it as a "things are not always what they seem" type deal.

Stop.
Stop trying to be someone else.
Stop it.
You are you.
Be you.
Stop being fake.
Stop pretending.
If you are constantly comparing yourself to those around you--then you don't know who you are.
Find your identity.
Start with Him.

I read this quote the other day: "Comparison is the thief of joy" - Theodore Roosevelt.
It really is.