Comparing

I have to put down some very honest feelings.  The desire to record our experience on a blog is very, very much a two edged sword.  1.  I love re-reading our lives.  I love going back and reading something that I have forgotten about and having some of life's sweetest things brought back into memory.  It really is a source of joy.  2.  I have wanted a way to genuinely share what we have gained/learned and share with others.  When someone is diagnosed with ALS there are a bagillion questions a person has.  Our GREATEST resources are each other and I want to be able to lighten and lift the burdens of others in any and every way possible.  Because, although I have never, ever walked in your shoes, I have walked a similar path.  Fellow journeymen are a boon to the soul.

BUT - I am finding I wrestle with two very real things.  1.  I am not always the person that is captured in the post.  I am a person of a million moments.  I would never want someone to perceive a false sense of real.  I would never want someone to perceive a lack of authenticity.  And how do you really give a true and authentic sense of life in a few sporadic snapshots of the millions of moments that go by?  2.  Comparison.  Comparison is a thief of joy.  This is the real me talking here - I have found that as I read other person's blogs about ALS I find myself feeling like I am falling short.  Because of my own personal pride and insecurity.  Instead of really being happy for some people and the amazing things they are doing, I feel a sense of loss, that what I am doing is not enough.  That I should somehow pattern my experiences after another's.  That somehow by them recording and sharing their experience it somehow has more validity than my own.  I don't want to share to ever make someone feel this way.  It hurts to feel like you are not enough.  Because you are so, very, very, much enough.

And so I say this.  ALS is a sacred journey.  And each life is sacred and unique.  God intended for us to BE DIFFERENT.  God delights in the variation that is found upon the earth - He created it.  And He delights in each of us having our own journey.  Even if it is an ALS journey... let it be yours, and only yours.  And may you find life's greatest joy in finding, discovering, and being YOU.