Jealousy

Jealousy: the green eyed monster we all feel.  All of us, come on admit it...even those of us who try really hard not to!

Over the past 18 months we've been walking through a big vast wide valley...to us it feels humungous, insurmountable almost and it has been so difficult to not look around and view everyone else's situations with jealousy.  It feels as though the things that we wish for the most, those ideals and dreams that we hold close to our hearts are snatched away every time we reach for them.

Jealousy is something I have always fought against.  I'm a do-er by nature, I like to push forward, get on with things and this is often displayed in my wanting to complete things and move onto 'the next stage' 

Marriage: tick
Children: tick
Family pet: tick

and so on and so on. 

So to feel as though we've hit a brick wall, to feel as though everyone else is moving forwards and we are just stuck is incredibly difficult for me to swallow.  I look around with seething envy and think "why can't we have a bit of that luck?"

But the thing I am so often reminded of at times like this, is that everyone has their own journey to walk.  And more often than not, the person that is displayed to the outside world is not the person on the inside.  I had a conversation with a friend recently, a friend who I would have suggested has got all her boxes currently ticked and is pursuing life quite happily.  Not so.  There are hopes and dreams that she carries which are not being fulfilled.  She is, to be honest, quite worried about the future and is struggling with feelings of jealousy towards other people and their situations.  Her family have their own valleys to cross.

This friend was equally surprised when I revealed that for the past 18 months I have felt caught in a continual downward spiral, that everything I touch turns to dust.  From the outside it appears that whilst we may be open about things we'd like to see change 'at some point', we haven't been particularly forthcoming about things we want to see changed 'now.'

Jealousy is hard because as people we are such self-centred beings.  It can so quickly and easily become all about us and our wants and our needs and our desires.  As Christians, we know that it should be about what God wants for our lives but that's not always easy to consider in the face of the here and now.

As always I find it important to turn to the bible and what God says, to gain some clarity on how to move on:

Proverbs 14 v 30: 'A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones'

This is such a brilliant way of saying don't fret, don't allow yourself to become bogged down by wants and wishes. Give it over to God, set your heart at peace and go out and live your life!

James 3 v 16: 'For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice'

How often, and how quickly, can feelings of jealousy multiply until they are all you can think of?  How easily do our hearts become embittered towards other people when it feels like everything is going right for them and not for us?  I have to hold my hands up and say sometimes I have even become confused about what it is I'm actually envious of because it so rapidly overtakes clear and rational thinking.  It becomes a snowball of emotion where you end up missing the point because all you can think about is how you want what you can't have.

In times like these it's important to try and take a step back.  Instead of thinking about what it is that we don't have, to think about what we do have and to thank God for those things.  I often suffer with bouts of insomnia (due to a brain which never switches off!) and something I've found which helps me is to write down three things I am thankful each day.  It gives my mind focus but also, at times when I'm feeling down I have a ready made list of all the amazing little things that happen in my every day life.  Things that are so simple to forget when we are feeling sorry for ourselves!!

I was given a lovely jacket for mother's day recently which said, on the tag "life is out there" and I thought, how amazingly apt for where we are currently at.  Life is out there not stuck in our heads or in our homes.  It's not in our gripes and grumbles, it's out there and we need to go forwards and experience it, trialling times and all.

I know, from experience, that we won't be walking through our valley forever, but that doesn't mean that I can put my head down and choose to wallow as we walk, moaning about other people and how I perceive their lives.  I need to make the decision to lift my head up, set my heart at peace, stop worrying about what everyone else has or hasn't got in comparision to me and step forwards. 

With God at my side. 

With God at my centre.