Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The good, the bad and the other

It is nearly impossible not to compare. I know you're not supposed to, but sometimes I just can't help myself. I compare my children to other people's children and to themselves. It's bad. It's unrealistic. I know, I know. I'm sorry. I'm a bad person sometimes. I just can't help but wonder why one of my kids is pretty easy-going and the other one isn't. Why can one share and give things up while the other one always needs to win and be right and be the best? I don't just compare them. I compare myself as a parent. I wonder why I can't be calm like the other mom at the park. Why doesn't she blow her stack when her son throws sand in her daughter's face for the seventh time? And, it goes the other way too. I sometimes look at other kids - like a five-year-old rolling on the floor screaming and stamping his feet because he has to eat at Burger King instead of McDonalds. If my kids ever did that, I would freak out. I look at the mom who is so busy with her iPhone that she doesn't notice her child dangling from the top of the monkey bars and think I would never ever be that mom. But aren't we all that mom? Or that child? Maybe I just happen to catch that crying kid in the middle of the worst day of his life. Or maybe that mom is texting her best friend who just got a divorce. Who knows? Maybe - no definitely - I need to stop judging because I certainly wouldn't want them thinking the same things about me. It's a good lesson (and of course it's one that God gives us). Take the plank out of your own eye before you realize the splinter in someone else's.

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