There seems to be a reoccurring theme in my text messages I’ve been receiving lately from my girl friends.
Wanting what you can’t have. Or what you don’t have… yet.
In one day, two girl friends blew up my phone after they just wrapped up their individual “ugly cries” for a same struggle, different circumstances. For both, it was all about a huge yet completely different desire in their hearts, yet, they both had to witness someone else close to them get what they want/long for/are frustrated they don’t have yet.
And boy… do I know this feeling all too well. If there’s anything infertility struggles will bring to the surface, it’s the jealousy inside you didn’t know you had that rears it’s ugly head and you find yourself bitter going, “Whoa, I just don’t recognize myself. I don’t *want* to feel this, but… it just feels… so… unfair.”
And that’s what I told my friends in reply to their text messages. That sometimes in life, that’s what helps us purify our hearts, to just simply get an ugly cry out and say… it’s stinkin’ unfair.
It’s unfair when others get what we want. It’s unfair we have to wait so long for that thing we desire for so much. It’s unfair it seems to happen so easily for some. It’s unfair that we get “stuck” in this circumstance we don’t want to be in. It’s unfair that others get joy from the very thing that causes us so much pain. It’s unfair when life doesn’t go how we once dreamed it would.
Yet….
What I also told my friends in reply to their text message is the best piece of advice someone gave me earlier this year…. that as unfair as it all feels in our human frailty and comparison game, we still have a choice to simply celebrate life. It can be the hardest thing in the world to do when our focus is stuck on the one thing we can’t have, but I’ve learned, when I take a step forward to rejoice for others despite my own current lacking, that’s where I find my strength. Strength in realizing, ok, through God’s supernatural strength, I AM capable of choosing joy over pity parties.
For me personally, I used to avoid all things baby related/pregnant women/unfollow people on Facebook who posted anything related to a sonogram or bump or announcement. It just stung. Like a knife being twisted… over and over. I really wanted to be that friend who could celebrate with friends, but some days I just wasn’t capable because it just simply hurt too much. I’ve been through my seasons where I pushed away, withdrew, sunk into depression and had many ugly cries. And instead, looking back, I now realize how much celebrating I was missing out on.
The enemy knows how to dangle in front of us the one thing we can’t have. He did it to Eve with that dang apple, and he continues to do it us now. Eve had everything she needed in that garden to live a full life, yet all she could focus on was the one thing God told her not to touch. The one thing she thought she knew better than God, her Creator, that she should have. There from the very beginning, we learn it’s in our human nature to covet what we can’t have, but that’s exactly what Jesus died for. To give us freedom to break free from past mistakes, past sin, past failures and instead celebrate life as a new creation through His victory on the cross. To celebrate His everyday victories. Because when He gives a victory to someone else before we receive ours, it’s still His kingdom victory. And He wants us to celebrate this beautiful life He died for.
It’s taken me a long time to get to a place where I could end my pity party and finally attend baby showers, and wish pregnant women congratulations… genuinely… but I’m here to say, it IS possible, no matter what your circumstance, to be joyful for others who get the things you long for. It. Is. Possible.
Both my friends followed up to tell me they reached out to the people in their own circumstance who got what they wanted to wish them congrats and well wishes, and how much better they felt after doing so once they released the bitterness that consumed their ugly cry earlier in the day. There’s power, and deep breaths, waiting in doing the things we think we can’t… and so much more life and love waiting when we finally leave our pity parties to join another party of celebrating with others instead!
What circumstance in your own world do you need to release bitterness from today?
YES!!! YES!!! YESSSSSSS! This is EXACTLY what people need to hear Scarlett!! And your writing sincerely touches the emotion behind this insanity we all subscribe to at some point in our lives. I am so in love with your analogy using Eve and the apple because all of a sudden I realized this issue stems literally from the dawn of time! It made me feel less alone, and also gave me a sense of hope that we can get through this with what God is teaching us in the midst of it. Because I do believe there’s a humbling and a message in it for us all– to celebrate life as we have it and to celebrate those that have exactly what we yearn for! There is TRUE HEALING in our ability to look outside ourselves and rejoice for others.
Thank you so much for writing this beautiful message. I love you… you are SUCH a beacon of light for others!! Keep shining it! We all need to bathe in it 🙂
I hope you know how much I love you! Thank you for being a constant source of support through this journey. I’m glad we have each other first as family but even greater as friends!