When You Are the One Envied

This one hurts and hits a little close to home.  You see, The Evil Twins not only hurt the person who struggles with them, they also wounds the ones envied.  I know, I have been on the receiving end.

Dear Sister who Envies what I have:

Here’s what you don’t know.  You have no idea the pain and struggles I go through on a sometimes daily basis.  You don’t walk in my shoes, you just admire them from afar.

You have no idea what we have experienced as a family, the pain, the trauma, the agony.  You are so blinded by what you perceive as gifts, that you don’t see the mess behind them.  There have been times of such devastation that I thought I simply would die from pain and fear. 

Just because I have nine children and homeschool does not mean for one second that I don’t have daily battles. You have no idea how much I have fought self-hatred, insecurity and self-doubt.  So many days filled with feelings of failure and fear that I was messing everything up.  You have no idea how much time I spend on my knees or face just so I can get up and do it all over again.

This marriage?  Yes, it is beautiful and wonderful, but we are flawed and human and have a sin to contend with just like you do.  Even the most blessed of marriages take work and dying to self, daily.  You don’t know the battles that we have fought with each other and against each other.

The opportunities the Lord has given me to use the gifts and talents He has put in me?? I don’t know why, He allows me to do and experience these things.  You don’t know the self-deprecation I battle when He chooses to use ‘me’.  Really??  Me???  I really am just a girl, trying to do my best to honor and glorify my Father, just like you.  Only He and I know the depth of yuck in my heart, you really have no idea.

Another thing you might not know, when you make those comments or give those looks or have that tone, the envy and jealousy in you makes me feel dirty and ashamed.  Like it is my ‘fault’ I have this or that.  Those comments take something that the Lord intended for a gift,  and I become ashamed of it. 

I feel compelled to tell you, ‘well, it’s not all that good, my husband . . .  or my kids . . .’ anything to deflect what you are saying. I feel guilty and feel the need to counter it with something not so good, even to the point of feeling like I need to make something up just so you will feel better and not think so badly of me for the good I have.  Crazy, isn’t it?

Not only are you miserable because Envy and Jealousy are making you that way, they are sliming me too!  Both of us wounded.  It’s all perspective!  Our perspective of what the other person has is usually so off.  We never see the whole picture.  Only bits and pieces.

Signed,

A Woman Just Like You (with different gifts and different baggage)

Think about it from another perspective for a second.  There is always someone who has it worse off than you.  Perhaps your marriage is hard, but you are not dying of cancer.  Maybe you can’t have children, but you’re not going through the heartache of watching your children enjoying the ride on the train to hell.  Maybe you don’t ‘get’ to have a job or an outside ministry, but you also don’t have the baggage and spiritual battles that come with those.

I really believe this quote is true.

“If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.”  Regina Brett

Remember, you are only seeing a small glimpse of someone else’s life!!  I promise you, it is NOT all rainbows and roses!!  Envy and Jealousy seeks to destroy you and me and relationships. 

Father, I pray for great discernment for each of us.  Show us when we are listening to the lies of the enemy.  Show us when it is his voice, the voice of Envy and Jealousy.  Give us grace to repent and walk away in the freedom you have provided.  In Jesus’ Name.

The Evil Twins and Comparison

Envy, Jealousy and Comparison all play really well together.  They feed off each other and help one another grow, drive the roots deeper into the heart, seeking to destroy and suffocate.  Sounds lovely, doesn’t it.

Envy, Jealousy and Comparison are really just fruit, bad, rotten fruit, but fruit, none-the-less.  If there is fruit than there must be a root.  I want to share a bit about some of the major ‘roots’ to these evil companions as I have experienced them in my own life.

I believe some of the major roots to Envy and Jealous have to do with a

• deep lack of knowledge of our value
• who we are in Christ
• insecurity
• lack of contentment
• a lack of trust in God
• (there is more, of course)

Let’s think about it for just a minute.  When I know that I know I am a treasure in the arms of Christ, that I am valuable just the way I am, that nothing I do or say changes that value in the eyes of the ONLY ONE who matters, I have no need or lack that sends me looking at others and what they have and what they do.  When I am comfortable in my own skin, I don’t go looking for someone else’s skin to try to fit in.

When I really understand who I am in Christ and because of Christ and that I am chosen, holy and dearly loved there is no ‘lack’ that needs filling.  I don’t look at what others have and long for it because I am so ‘fulled up’ (as my grandson says) that it doesn’t matter what you have or do, I know I am something special and it becomes enough.

When I begin to be thankful and content with who I am and what I have, I have no need for anymore.  The only way to a life of contentment that I can figure out is to be radically thankful for all that I do have. 

When I become so content with my lot in life, my gifts, my talents, my calling there is not need to compare to others.

Also, when I learn that I can trust my Father, even in the things I ‘think’ I lack, I stop looking to the other side of the fence for greener grass.

When we compare, we almost always will come up short in some way or another.

Instead of trying not to be Envious or Jealous, it seems more profitable to address the root. 

Saturate your mind with the Word of God. Read over and over chapters like, Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1. 

Meditate on all the verses that tell you who you are in Christ. 

I remember when we first got saved we would hear teachings on renewing our minds on who we are in Christ and I am ashamed to say that I blew it off, it seemed way to ‘elementary’.  “Come on, I know who I am in Christ”.  I now wonder how many years of struggling I could have avoided had I heeded this simple ‘elementary’ teaching. Sigh.

Be radically thankful!  Our dear sister, Ann Voskamp writes beautifully about this.

Do you see any of these ‘roots’ in your own life?  Have you overcome some of these?  Care to share a piece of your journey?

The Evil Twins

That’s what I like to call ‘Envy and Jealousy’.  They are so evil, and I hope to help you recognize them clearly when I am done with this little series on, “The Evil Twins”.

Envy: painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage; feeling discontent because of what someone else has.  Actually disliking another because of it.

Jealous: hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage.

I personally have experience on both sides of these Evil Twins.  I have struggled with Envy and Jealousy myself, and have been the one that others have envied or were jealous of.  Neither is good.  Both places are miserable.

Envy and Jealousy seek to:

• Divide and isolate
• Condemn and rob one of all joy and gratitude
• They cause us to accuse and be bitter towards God, others and even ourselves
• They make us mean and ugly
• They cripple us from functioning as the Body of Christ, to love and encourage
• We ‘spin out’ focusing on what others have and we miss what we have

Ladies, we need each other.  The older I get, and the more I embrace who I was created to be, the more amazing and wonderful I realize we women are.  We were created to be in relationship, to need each other.  But here’s the deal, we simply cannot love each other the way we were meant to as long as Envy and Jealousy have a place in our hearts.

Imagine a world in which we are so content with who we are and what we have.  A place where we trust our Father to provide for ‘our’ needs, and we are are not threatened by our sister’s successes, strengths or gifts, but where we  actually celebrate them with her.   I know this might sound like something we need to wait to experience until we get to heaven, but I don’t think so.  I think we can have just a little bit of heaven here on earth.

Join me on this journey of exposing The Evil Twins??  I’d love to hear from you along the way.