Happy Monday, ladies… coffee’s on, grace is already at the table, and I’ve been saving this conversation just for you. Pull up a chair. It’s just us this morning.
I don’t know about you ladies, but I have sat in a church service, or scrolled through a feed, or listened to someone share their testimony… and felt that quiet, uncomfortable sting of comparison settle right in my chest. That little whisper that says… why not me? Why does her journey look like that and mine looks like this?
Can we be honest about that this morning? Because I think it’s more common than we admit, and I think it keeps more women spiritually stuck than almost anything else.
Let me tell you a story.
When my mom was living with us in the early days of my ministry, she went away to a women’s camp. And when she came back… she was on fire. Genuinely, visibly, beautifully on fire for God. You could see it on her. That fresh encounter glow that makes you want whatever they’re having.
And I… I was envious.
There. I said it. Her own daughter. The woman who loves her fiercely… was sitting there envious of her own mother’s encounter with God. Because while she had been away having this mountain top experience, do you know what God had been asking me to do?
Wash feet.
Not metaphorically. Literally. God had been stirring in me this call to wash the feet of the people in our church. And I want to be completely honest with you, girlfriends… I was disappointed. I looked at what God was doing in my mom, and then I looked at what God was asking of me, and I thought… this is not the same. This is not equal. She gets the fire, and I get the basin and the towel?
Oh ladies. I almost missed it.
Because here is what I didn’t understand in that moment of comparison and envy and quiet disappointment… God wasn’t giving my mom something He was withholding from me. He was giving us each exactly what we needed for exactly the journey He had designed for us individually. Two different calls. Two different encounters. One God who knew precisely what He was doing in both of us.
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10 NIV
Prepared in advance. For us. Not for her. Not for him. For you, specifically, individually, intentionally.
When I was obedient to that quiet, humble, not-very-glamorous call to wash feet… something happened that I never could have anticipated. God began to birth in me a ministry of prophecy. He started moving through those acts of humble service in ways that took my breath away. And washing feet… that thing I had looked at with such disappointment… has become the greatest honour I have ever been given. The most sacred act. The thing I would choose above everything else.
But I almost missed it because I was too busy looking at someone else’s fire.
Sister, can I ask you something this morning?
Whose journey are you measuring yours against? Whose encounter with God are you envious of? Whose calling looks more exciting, more visible, more significant than the thing God is asking of you right now?
Because I want to tell you something important…
The thing He’s asking of you right now? That’s not the consolation prize. That’s not God giving you the lesser portion while someone else gets the good stuff. That is God at work in you in a way that is so specific, so intentional, so perfectly designed for who He made you to be… that nobody else could carry it the way you can.
Her journey is not your journey. And your journey is not hers.
We are not running the same race, ladies. We are not being shaped by the same tools or called to the same tasks or measured by the same milestones. Comparing your chapter three to someone else’s chapter ten makes no sense. Comparing your basin and towel to someone else’s mountain top experience makes no sense. God is not running a competition. He is running a kingdom. And every single role in it matters.
The comparison trap is a thief, girlfriend. It steals your joy in your own journey. It steals your ability to celebrate others genuinely. It steals the quiet, sacred moments where God is doing something extraordinary in you that you can’t even see yet because you’re too busy looking sideways.
Abba Father doesn’t do cookie cutter callings. He doesn’t mass produce encounters. Every single one of His daughters gets a journey that is uniquely, carefully, lovingly designed just for her.
Yours included.
So this Monday… can I invite you to stop looking sideways for just a moment? To turn your eyes back to your own path, your own call, your own quiet basin and towel if that’s what He’s given you… and trust that He knows exactly what He is building in you?
Because one day, I promise you… you will look back at the thing that disappointed you and realise it was the making of you all along.
Abba Father, forgive us for the moments we have looked at someone else’s journey and felt like ours didn’t measure up. Forgive us for the envy we’ve carried quietly in our chests. Today we lay down the comparison and we pick up trust. Trust that You are at work in us specifically, intentionally, lovingly. Help us to be faithful to the journey You designed for us, Lord… even when it looks like a basin and a towel. Especially then. Amen.
Coffee, Grace and Honest Talk.
