Comparisons and other such murmurings

I was just pondering today upon the way we, as parents and as a society, seem to be in a constant state of comparing ourselves, our children, our lifestyles, our skills etc etc with others.
I considered the fact that comparing oneself to another can be quite damaging to one's stability as a 'whole person' because whose 'ideals' are we comparing ourselves (or others) to?

I remember reading a portion of Brendan Manning's book "Abba's Child", he explained how our need to compare ourselves to some arbitrary worldly standard (basically being far to worried what everyone else thinks of us) causes us much grieve and insecurity. He goes on to say that if we were only worried about whether we are right in the sight of God and concerned about what he thinks and where we belong than so much of this insecurity will be a thing of the past.

Now there is a point to all this :-) .................
I often have people say to me, "oh your boys look so alike" OR "he's just like his brother". And then I have my own self-talk where i compare my child to someone else's child or some standard that isn't really founded in much. AND then there's the "baby olympics" that goes on amongst friends and acquaintances.........

So as I was pondering these things I went back through some photos and found some "similar age" photos of our boys to see whether they really look alike. This is what I found................. (JK (born 2004) on Left, LJ (born 2006) on Right)


On Their Birth Day




3 Months Old





8 Months Old




And I concede they are similar!!
But I work hard not to fall into the trap of comparing them (not saying that I won't!), they are their own little people with their own God given talents and gifts and personality. And I have been inspired by Rach from Intricate Simplicity to foster my children's interests and provide them opportunities to explore their little groove in life.

I think I might have written this blog for my own benefit :-)
But feel free to join in with my rambling thoughts.

Celebrate the uniqueness in your own life and then in those around you. Together we bring different colour, texture and depth to the painting of life. OH how bland it would be if we were all the same or too similar.