So yesterday Sophia wanted to play with me. As in, WITH me.
I was to sit still while she engaged in “fixing me”. Now I am not sure what exactly was wrong with me. I know better than to ask an almost four year old as she can be brutally honest, which means I was afraid of just what the answer may have been. So instead, I sat still & let her fix me.
As she played with my eyes & eyelashes, she proudly announced to me, “Mimi, when I am done with you, you will be gorgeous.”
To which I replied, “Really?”
Sophia then explained, “Yes and gorgeous is better than beautiful. Beautiful is better than pretty. But gorgeous is the best.”
At nearly four, how does she know this? Like WHO would have explained this to her?
We start so young with comparing ourselves against others. There is a danger we face when comparing ourselves one to another. Let’s be honest about this….what we do in comparing ourselves is to make a very thorough & careful examination to see just where we are similar to others. The danger lies in finding out where we are different. Even more dangerous, it is when we discover where we fall short. We must be very careful in how we internally process that information.
Comparison is a wonderful thing when we use that to celebrate the uniqueness of one another. When we encourage one another to develop & excel in our gifts & talents as they are distributed by God.
God, in His infinite wisdom, created each of us uniquely. Differently. We each have our own gifts & talents. None of us were meant to be a copy of each other. Scripture tells us:
“When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.” (2 Corinthians 10:12b NIV).
Daniel Darling (@dandarling), a pastor in Illinois, tweeted it this way:
Comparison is deadly: it blinds us to God’s unique purpose for each individual life. So we must kill this daily.
Not only have we been created differently from one another, we must be careful not to compare ourselves to others. God very clearly tells us we are not wise when we do so. Comparison is a thief – it will rob us of God’s intended purposes for our lives. It is a daily battle.
So the question I found myself asking today is this;
                          “What does a beautiful woman look like to God?”
To which God replied:
“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” (Proverbs 31:30 NIV).Â
                           Ahhh, that Proverbs 31 woman gets us every time 🙂
