[CrimsonTide4]

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.
...
1 Samuel 16:7


Last week, I went to Wal-mart. At the checkout, the cashier noticed my nails. She went off. She could not believe they were mine... Oh, how pretty, I'm so lucky ... and so on, and so on, and so on.

Then, she started getting down on herself. Mine won't grow.. I've done everything... I hate my stupid nails, etc. We chatted for a while about nail care, I paid my bill and left.

Later, I thought: I should have showed her my thumbnail on my left hand.

At the base, down near the skin, it was cracked and splintered; In a word: broken. Instead of having the manicurist clip it off, I asked her to paint over it and hide it. The cashier couldn't see that.

All she saw were my other nails, which I'd just gotten done. Had she peered closer, she would have seen the imperfection I was trying to hide.

What looks good isn't always good.

So often, we look at others and compare ourselves to them. And often, "Oh she's 25 and she's done this, "have it all " and we begin to get down on ourselves.

We find any number of ways to compare ourselves to the next sister and Stop!

There's a saying that the grass is always greener on the other side. Well, their water bill is higher too. And guess what? You can have green grass too.

You can't have what somebody else has if you're not willing to go
through what they went through.

Stop comparing yourself to others. Love yourself. Each of us has our own thorns. Be it weight, single-parenting, job dissatisfaction,
husband problems, financial distress, children woes, overworked/underpaid issues, loneliness, confusion, self doubt, etc.

You've got to love yourself and if you can't do that right now, at
least quit comparing yourself to others, because you don't know what they are going through.

Someone will always be prettier. They will always be smarter. Their house will be bigger. They will drive a better car. Their children will do better in school. And their husband will fix more things around the house.

So let it go, and love you and your circumstances. Think about it. The prettiest sister in the world can have Hell all up in her heart. The richest sister you know - she's got the car, the house, the clothes - might be lonely.

So, again, love you. And let Christ be your barometer. Mirror Him. He's the only standard, and even when you come up short, He will not leave you or forsake you.