You were made for your journey

Elenaor Roosevelt once said "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent".

I have a few girlfriends who are pregnant right now or just had babies. We love to discuss our previous births, talk about how labour is so different for each of us.  Neither one of our labours are better, and I think we all agree to that.  Each of our birthing experiences have been beautiful in their own ways, things have gone weird in their own ways.  I think we can all agree when we say that each of our children were born in the way God intended them to be born, they are all healthy children now and we can share our experiences just for the sake of sharing (or to laugh histarically at something that happened, or to help comfort for the situations that were not as we would have ever imagined.)
Not everyone is like this.  Some people really love to brag about their experience and make it about their experience even if in the momentt its about someone elses. Humans love to compeat, we love to one up.  Being someone on the recieving end of this, and the one who has been the one who has butted in my experience, trying to compare it to someone elses to make myself look good, God has really placed on my heart especially through this pregnancy to step back and realize that each persons experience is their experience He placed in their lives.  ‎2 Corinthians 10:12b NIV says When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.

We are totally tearing apart and critizing our own and others experiences when we begin to compare eachothers experiences in a way that could make anothers expernience not as great as they thought.  When we try to put our experiences or expectations on another being we may not be realizing thats not part of the marvellous plan God has placed in their lives.

Im glad I have friends who embrace each persons experiences with everything.

For us wives and mothers, as women in general I feel as though we compare ourselves way too much with what we see online on blogs where we see perfection (I dont follow those anymore lol).  When we see quotes pop up on our newsfeeds on facebook about what perfect parenting looks like.  Parenting is messy, life is messy.  There is joy in every moment, but it can be downright chaotic sometimes.  Can I get an amen?  These things dont help.  Beautiful quotes, but when we put ourselves down because we dont measure up, which I am guilty of, then its not helping.

I felt myself feeling down and bummed as I got really excited to finally start a Bible study at dinner time last night (inspired by a blog post I read earlier yesterday), when all the kids were done eating, we would pull our scripture and read together.  It sounded so beautiful.  But after one kid had a melt down, another was cutting up his lasagna so small that a mouse couldnt even pick it up, and one just kept asking to go back outside, tension building and everyone more or less in a rush to do what they wanted to do... I ended up having a meltdown and the first thought that came to my head was "I dont measure up."

But this is the biggest lie that the enemy puts in us Mothers and wives faces... and for men too, but because Im a woman I will probably keep speaking to us women.

"For we are God's workmanship ("valuable masterpiece"), created in Christ Jesus to do good

works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." - Ephesians 2:10
This speaks to me this morning as I type this.  Three things that make me smile. 

1.  We were created in Jesus.  We were created.  Thats the keyword I am looking at.  We were not moulded by someone elses expereinces.  We were created by God.  We are His workmanship!

2.  We were created for good works-  God has good things for us to be doing.  This doesnt mean that as we follow Gods perfect plan for our lives children will automatically become perfect angels, there will never be a dirty dish in the house, everyone around us will be marvellous and we wont feel like we wanna pull our hair out, birth plans will go out the window, breastfeeding will be hell, (these are some of my experiences) but it means God still has good things to come from all the messy parts of life.  We can look at them as not nessesarily messy horrible failures, and look at them as part of our plan.  To inhale these moments as lessons and part of the experience.

3.  He prepared them for us in advance.  He's got plan for our lives.  Each individual. Not one person in the world will ever have been given the same path as another.  We may do similar things, but ultimatly in the end, each one was created by God for each person individually.  We are Gods WORKMANSHIP.  He worked hard on us.  Thought of each moment in our lives and each part of us and out of love created each of us for something amazing. 

"God will instruct him in the way chosen for him." -  Psalm 25:12

This is the other scripture that makes me smile this morning.  GOD will instruct us in the way He has chosen for us.

How many of us are allowing God to instruct us in that way?  How many of us are turning to resources that are not from God?  Even if they are from Christian writers or speakers,  are we still ultimatly turning to God before we turn to books or webpages to help us?  Gods word says he WILL instruct us on the way He has planned for us.  Not "maybe He will if all else fails", but He Will!   So this means in our parenting, birthing choices, jobs, spouces, our journey with God itself, decsisions etc.  He will instruct.  He's the ultimate teacher!  This is not to say He wont use people around you to speak His truth into your life, but we need to remember not to take their experience and try to make it our own, because the second we do that we are taking their journey and trying to fit it ontop of our own.

I think once we start embracing the journey God has for us, at least for me, all the things I thought I had to do, all the anxiety, the negativity it falls off a lot better.  I do have days, even parts of each day where the temptation is there to feel like because Im not doing it like so and so that I am not as good at it as them, but thats so not what God says for our lives and I have to declare that God has it all figured out for me. 

Embrace each journey in your life.  Whether it be children, pregnancy, your walk with Christ, marraige, work, friendships, trials.  Embrace each moment and claim it as your own.  Your journey that God wrote for you.