After a decade of gathering women together for prayer , we are inspired to bring our words of encouragement to you. This is I refresh. Welcome to today's podcast of I refresh women. Today we have Dean aspires , Hannah Waters and myself, Christie waters. Today we're going to be discussing something that everyone deals with and that's comparison. I know as one of the, well I'll say the oldest person in the room, we'll leave that there.
Um, I've had lots of years to compare myself with others and sometimes it works that well and sometimes it doesn't. Well, no , let's be honest. It never works out well, doesn't it? So I want to open up with a verse from the word of God and it's Galatians six, four and it says, pay careful attention to your own work for then you will not get the satisfaction of a job well done and you won't need to compare yourself to anyone else.
I find that if I'm going about my business and in taking care of my business, then I'm more successful with what I'm doing, whether it's at work as a mom, as a wife, as a friend.
But you know, with social media today, it's hard not to compare myself when I see this person going on vacation and this person whose marriage appears perfect and maybe I just had a discussion with my husband, or maybe I see their kids that just got the best job in the whole wide world and , and they're going to law school and they're full paid, full scholarship or whatever.
I can get into comparison, particularly when I'm on social media and I think that in the world we live in, that is a constant struggle for a lot of people. So tell me as a mom, as a, as a person, as a woman, I mean, right . I think society puts standards on us too , to look a certain way, live a certain way. Um, and that's not who we as Christians should, should set as our standard or our Mark.
Um, I know that my daughter actually, not just my daughter, but all of her friends , um, especially at the young age, they don't know who they are, you know, and if they aren't centered in Christ, they're not going to know where their value comes from. So they're looking to other people. And I know that , um , especially in middle school, there's so much bullying and all of that that you're ostracized.
So you start , um , looking at what you think is bad about yourself, you know, but like you said on social media, think all of us, it's hard, but we have to remember that it's not always what it appears. You know, it's a highlight reel and you know, two seconds before that picture they could have been clamoring at each other and screaming and yelling and then they have a one second smile. And that's what we see.
So we have to be very careful not to make that , um , like they say perception is reality. So our perception from what we see is that, Oh, they have everything perfect. They're not even struggling like I am, but you know, we're all broken and we all struggle. Um, and I think it's very important in today's society to not be so focused on social media. So Dana, I'm going to take that a step further because you are a very accomplished professional photographer and you take how many pictures to get.
One perfect picture well of myself on a normal situation, you know? Okay. I'm different than most photographers because most of them do like the casual, I like natural on camera . I have clients, I've had his size zero model clients who are perfect by society standards ask me to Photoshop them smaller than mine or to their news isn't ready . You know? So I mean, I think we all see our own faults, other people, and this is what I tell my clients, and I have to remind myself this too.
They always say, I don't like having my picture taken. You know, I can you make me skinny or can you make me younger? And when, when I take a picture of you, I'm going to capture the essence of who you are and everybody who sees it is going to say, Oh my gosh, you caught me , captured Christie perfectly. That's her. And they love you for who you are. And we don't notice whatever it is you don't like about yourself because we all have something.
When you see a picture of your eyes, go directly to that thing that you don't like about yourself. Very true. But when everybody else who knows you and loves you looks at it and they see the spirit, they see, Oh my gosh, I love that smile about her or the personality that it shows. So for me, I don't do perfect portraits. Very rarely do I do for headshots or things like that.
But most of the pictures when I, when I show my clients and my photos, the ones they like are those candidates where I captured who they are, you know? And um, and so I think it's a constant reminding of people that really look like, and what we look like is not who we are. We may want to be perfect, but God made us perfectly, you know, he beautifully, wonderfully made in every way and who are we to save that? They didn't.
Perfect. That's awesome.
Hannah , what do you think about that as a 20 year old young woman, prime of life in college? Is there a comparison at a Christian university that you attend? Oh, sure. Um ,
I think that even, sure the basic things are, Oh, you see someone's body and you want to look like that. But even from a Christian perspective, someone might post their DeVos and you go, Oh my goodness, I forgot to , to read my Bible today. Or Oh, they're so on point. They post their calling every single morning at the same time. And I don't do that. And so I think it can even cause that kind of comparison just in your walk with Christ.
And it's important to remember your walk with Christ is your own. It's unique. It's not supposed to look like everyone else's. And so just because someone seems like they have a perfect walk with Christ, that's not the case. And so anything that we see on social media, you have to take with a grain of salt, whether it's Christian or not.
That sounds about right . [inaudible] I feel convicted a lot because like my whole feed is gone stuff and, and , and devotionals or inspirational things. I'm like, Oh, I should probably be better. Um, but you know, we are who God made us and yes, we all need to be better, I think every day looking for ways to improve ourselves . So, but that's because God wants us to do that.
Not because we feel pressured by society or friends, you know like we all have our our own path and we have to stay in our lane kind of thing. But I remember reading John de beers book good or God and that is such a good thing to think about because a lot of us, especially in the church are doing good things and you can do so many good things but isn't what God wants you to do. You are you in the lane he placed you in?
Yeah, we're the ones that stand before him one day and he says, did you do what I asked you to do? Well the panel was fasting so I decided I needed a fast too and was , I'm going on a missions trip that I felt like, well I had to go on into, I mean if God didn't call me to the same seasons then I have no business doing that cause it gets me off track. So comparison isn't just the worldly things like what I started it out with. It is the spiritual things.
And like Hannah said, the divas and my doing everything that everybody else is. So what else do you have to add in Hannah ?
I really think a lot of times it's easy to compare yourself to people when you don't know who you are and you don't know how you operate. So I think that what has helped me is figuring out, Oh, I'm different from these people, but that's not a bad thing. This is just how God created me to be. So I can rest in that knowing that I do like time away from people. And that doesn't mean I hate people or you know, I'm not a people person. It just means that I need that for who God made me to be.
And I think that there's a lot of peace that comes with that. When you finally realize there's no shame in being and figuring out who God made me to be
and as her mom, I can tell you that when she was little, we would push her and try to say, Oh, go talk to them . So-and-so, go talk to so and so. And she was so uncomfortable and it was just not something she was at ease with. But then if you gave her microphone to sing, she could sing before thousands of people. She's sung at church before 5,000 people. And it's just one of those things, God created her to do that. But when I would be like, Oh, you should go introduce yourself.
So I've had as a mom to back and say, okay, she was created this way and she does need that. And I think as a mom, that's one of our biggest struggles cause we want them to be what we [inaudible] our opinion is. And the easiest way to disappointment, yeah . Is failing expectations. Whether you put those expectations on someone else and that failing, you owe us trying to live up to expectations.
Other people who have mess , you know, it's, we can only be who God created us to be and do what he's called us to do. But it's so easy. I know I put expectations on my kids.
And as a parent you have to to some degree, but you also have to allow people the room, I mean, there's the , all these personality tests, we all operate differently and we have to allow people to the room and the grace to move and live within the being that God created them to be and to not be disappointed if they don't do it the way we expect it .
As a parent, you know, I have a son who's older than Hannah and they are very, very different, and I can remember my father saying, Christie , you could have two more, 10 more. They're all going to be different. Every one of them will be different and none of them will be the same. But it reminds me the scripture in Psalm one 39 verse 14 I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.
The Psalmist, David is saying, he's having to remind himself that he is fearfully and wonderfully made. And then he says, marvelous are your works will . He just said, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. So guess whose marvelous are marvelous are your works. He's saying he made me marvelous. Yeah . And, and that my soul knows very well and I need to remind myself sometimes, you know, I may not look like what I want to look on, may not be where I want to be in areas of my life.
I'm in process and we'll be in process. It also says he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. And I need to remind myself and find that piece of my soul knowing that he created me and he knew what he was doing. And I am fearfully and wonderfully made and marvelous is the work that he made in me .
So as we give each other or give ourselves grace, then it helps us also give others grace, whether it's our spouses or our children or people we work with. And I think that that's so powerful. I saw something the other day on social media. I don't know Hannah , if we were talking about it, but it was someone posted. You'll never meet it. Look into anybody's eyes. Who God does not love.
If everyone is created in God's image, then we need to step off the seat of judge, not just comparison towards ourselves, but comparison against other people. Well, I would never allow my child to do that. Hi there , sarcasm in my voice. If you can hear that on the podcast , um, I would never do this or I would never do that. And you find yourself going through battles where you're going, wait, how did I get here? I never thought this would happen.
We have prayed over our children, we have stood on the word of God. I can't believe that we're having this situation arise and yet God's grace is sufficient. So if his grace is sufficient for me, then I need to extend that grace to other people. And I think that that's one thing that having children will do for you very quickly is you will discover that you are not perfect, that you do not have it all figured out. And that is a very humbling experience to be a mom.
I was going to say as a parent, what being a parent has taught me more than anything is how much that lets me. Yeah. You until you , you're a parent, you cannot fully recognize the depth of God's love. Yes. And to stay away from comparison. Yes. It's turning your eyes off of outside things and turning them back to God to fix it. Turns your eyes. Yeah. Seriously read the word and be with him and then you're not focusing on the other people. That's right. Turn off social media for a little bit.
You know, the Bible also tells us that , um, his mercies are new every morning and great as this faithfulness. So when we do miss it, isn't it wonderful that we can come back to him, ask for that grace, mercy, that forgiveness, because he is always willing, even when our spouse isn't ready to forgive us, our kids aren't ready to forgive us. We're not ready to forgive ourselves. He's always waiting there for that.
So I hope you've been encouraged by this podcast today, but before we leave, let's talk about how you can find some more encouragement. So as women or anyone actually , um, we are working to not compare ourselves to others. And so what do you do? How do you change that behavior in your life? Hannah? Um, I go to the word and I asked God to remind me of who I am at him. That's awesome. So Dina , what about you? I tend to not go into the media so much.
Um, and, and also just remember , I mean I, I remind myself that God made me the way he wants me and not perfect in my eyes, but also constant reminding of it . So that's really good. I think that the older I get, the easier it is because you start to get that feeling well know it doesn't really matter what people think about me because I'm established and this is how things are going and that kind of thing.
So I also think just with age that it gets a little easier not to compare yourself to [inaudible] that God's grace is upon us. So we hope that you've been encouraged today, that you are enough in Christ and that you do not have to compare yourself to anyone else because he made you fearfully and wonderfully made you. So have a blessed day.