comparisons.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always been compared to my sister in EVERYTHING: how we look – from the color of our skin to our ears to our noses to our hair to our thighs…; how we did in school or work – from our grades to our achievements to our educational degrees..; what our extra-curricular activities were/are; our relationships; our personalities; and, our interests.

One common thread held all those comparisons together: that she was always the more beautiful, more intelligent, more talented one. In short, she was always better or best. And the reason I knew that was the case was that people actually told me so.

Now you don’t get compared practically your whole life and just magically realize that people’s opinions, while they may feel extremely entitled to them, are not necessarily the truth. But those opinions hurt, nonetheless, especially when they come from the people closest to you and whose voice matters in your life. Then the hurt turns into wounds or walls that you end up carrying with you wherever you go. And because they’ve been there for so long, you eventually come to believe that they’re actually a part of who you are.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that as a result of years and years and years of all that, I grew up completely insecure. How could I not be, when it was made clear that I didn’t have anything to be confident about? Because of what other people said, I believed that I could never be smart, beautiful, talented or skillful enough.

My way of coping was going out of my way to please everyone, never really wanting to go against the flow, thinking that my ideas were never really any good. If I ever did anything wrong, it somehow translated to ‘I never do anything right.’ In this whole process, I lost myself.

It took meeting Someone who thought I was beautiful, not for what I do or don’t do, not for what I look like, not even for what my talents and abilities are or aren’t, to help me overcome and heal. Someone who loves me for me. Someone who showed me who I was created to be. Someone who taught me to like myself, that it was okay to be me, even though I wasn’t like everyone else. Someone who didn’t compare me to anyone else. Someone who continues to tell me that I have a lot to offer the world and the people around me.

For that, I am forever grateful. It was through Him that my confidence was built. And it is in Him that my security now rests.

I am also extremely thankful that, in spite of all the comparisons, my relationship with my sister remains untainted. No one believes in her more than I do, and I know she feels the same about me. In fact, if any good came out of the comparisons, it is that they drew her and me closer together by having us find out for ourselves who each of us truly are as individuals.

I’m still a work in progress, and I suffer an occasional relapse into the world of comparisons, but I am more aware of it now. And I’m able to make a more deliberate effort to choose to no longer live by other people’s measuring sticks. Instead, I choose to live by His. That way I know I can always measure up.

Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything

in the One who makes me who I am.

Philippians 4:13 (MSG)