The Comparison Trap

I just returend home from a huge Mary Kay yearly conference called "Seminar". It's really one of the most amazing things I've ever attended. We fill up the Dallas Convention Center (actually, we fill it up 5 times over 5 weeks) and the week is filled with celebration, motivation, education and inspiration. I always come back super pumped and ready to go! I've also noticed that in years past I come back playing the comparison game. I'm not sure if this is part of my personality, or something that I just stuggle with b/c of my gender or just my sin nature in general. I look at how somemone else has done something better than me and I lament and wish I was "as good" in that area. I suppose I do it in other places as well . . . not just the Mary Kay arena. I have a friend who is amamzing at scrapbooking and I think I should do a better job at that. Another friend is a great cook and always fixes something unique and creative for her family. My friend Leslie is a work out queen! She has abs of steel while I'm sporting a post-partum muffin top! Needless to say, I fall into the comparison trap. Two things I've realized about this dangerous game: 1 - I typically compare my weaknesses with others strenghts and 2 - gifts are to be celebrated, not envied. I guess in addition to convicting me about my pride, the Lord is also teaching me that the greatest gift I can share with others is love. I may not be a super cook, workout queen or scrapbooking diva, but I sure can love people. It starts at home with my husband and boys . . . it stretches into my work and my church body and out into my community. So, when I look at it that way I'm pretty humbled at the huge gift I've been given!
"So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
1 Cor. 13:13