Do you ever have those periods of your life when day after day, moment to moment even, you seem to get a clearer view of all the ways you stink at everything you want to be? Yep, I'm right in the middle of one. I think it may be the genesis of progress, or it may just be further evidence of my inability to progress. I'm not sure which. Let me write about a couple of disturbing things going on in my head and see if I can tie them all together at the end.
So, first, the covetousness. My dear sister and her husband just bought a new house. They and their six little kidlets will soon be moving into a spacious but not ostentatious house with a nearly perfect lot. In fact, the whole thing seems so stinking perfect for them that it appears almost miraculous. It's not new, and they will be doing a lot of renovating over the next few years, but it's got good bones, it was a deal, and it just fits them.
And I am jealous.
Yes, once again I am envious of my sister. Which, I know if she read this she would tell me how silly I am, and I am. But I envy her--her good husband, her beautiful children, her house big enough for company and yard big enough for everything, her lovely, chaotic, stay-at-home mother life. When I was 7 I envied her perfectly arranged closet shelves and canopy bed. When I was 12 I envied her bra and nylons, when I was on my mission I envied the breathless, falling-in-love accounts sent in letters. And now, as I'm heading toward 40, I realized today I'm still a silly, jealous mess of a little sister.
The thing is, I don't, and never have, wanted any of those things at her expense. I wouldn't take any of it away from her even if it would magically supply me with everything I feel I so sorely lack. I love her. But why can't I have any of it, too?
See, it's not the kind of covetousness that would move me to take anything from someone else, which is, I think, the least dangerous form of covetousness for most of us. It seems very childish to me to think that you could somehow gain happiness at someone else's expense. I don't want any one else's husband or kids or house or happiness. I just have no idea why I can't have mine.
That, the stealing of someone else's blessings is not the danger in covetousness for me. The danger in my wicked jealousy is not recognizing the abundance in my own life. There's a scripture that I have long both loved and struggled mightily with. In Paul's epistle to the Phillipians, he writes:
"For I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound: Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need."
I stink at being content. I hold out desires (righteous but dangerous ones) that keep me in this constant state of abasement, hunger and need. And yes, I abound too, but in ways that matter but don't comfort.
I am not ambitious. I'm grateful to have a job because it delivers me from a kind of desperation that has afflicted women for thousands of years. I'm grateful to have opportunities for education because my mind needs to think and work and push. But the daily work of a career and an education doesn't bring me much joy. I dream of cleaning the house everyday, taking care of my babies, and going grocery shopping regularly. With a list. And coupons. I'd rather live an obscure life as a wife and a mother than win awards, prestige or respect in the workplace. Not that I'm winning any awards, prestige or respect in the workplace, but those are the rewards that are available to me, that I am allowed to strive for, and I don't care about any of it. The abundance of my career, and I have been lucky in it, abases me as much or more than it energizes me. What I pour into it leaves me feeling hollow and hungry rather than abundant.
And then I look at my peers--nearly all my friends and colleagues and acquaintances in their thirties who are raising kids and living in a family and I'm both raging jealous and self-loathing that my life resembles them not at all. Horrible, aren't I? Shall I tell you my deepest, darkest secret? When I look at my sister and all that she has and I don't, the only thing I can come up with is that she is far more worthy, and therefore more deserving than I am. She's always been thinner, smarter, prettier, more talented, harder-working, just better. She makes better decisions. She's more obedient. She is what I want to be. And so is pretty much everybody else. And I am not.
Ugh. I know this is not a good way to think, but no matter how hard I try it lurks in the back of my mind and the back of my throat. God's grace does not rest upon me in the form of a family and a home and abundance because I cannot make myself deserving of any of it.
Now, I know that the Atonement of Christ should overcome all of that. Paul continues that passage in Phillipians with this statement: "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me." But how does that work for me? I can't change my circumstances, nor can I change how I feel about it, and I've spent most of my adult life shuttling between unsuccessful attempts to do those two things. So, at the center of my unworthiness is this: I still don't trust my Savior. How is this possible?
Luke chapter 12 has an interesting treatise on covetousness and faith. A man asks Jesus to settle an inheritance dispute between him and his brother. Jesus replies with "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth." He goes on and tells a parable, then launches into a well-known passage:
And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.
The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.
Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?
And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?
If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?
Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?
My jealousy of my sister and everybody else is just a symptom of this much larger problem--my lack of faith.
Help, anyone? I'm stuck here. I don't know how to fix this. How do I let go?
P.S. I have lovely single friends in their thirties, and I don't think they are unworthy. I am constantly baffled that they aren't blessed with the husbands and and families and homes that they so richly deserve and so righteously want. Because they are lovely, and obedient and beautiful and overwhelmingly talented and hard working. I don't know how to fix that either, nor do I understand why. For my own sake, knowing my own soul, I could not indict God for what I lack. But, and I know this is blasphemous so I don't actually succumb to the impulse, I am regularly tempted to indict him for their sakes. It is not fair, and there certainly better be some serious, serious compensation for what has been withheld at some point in the future. The sooner the better.
Don't worry. I'll totally understand if you don't want to stand very close to me. I wouldn't want to be next to me when the lightning strikes me down either.
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