An open letter to women everywhere
The Race has taught me lots of things. One of the most important things that I have learned on the Race is about what true friendships with my sisters I Christ looks like.
I’ve been so incredibly lucky to live for 11 months with some of the most amazing women that I have ever met, and I’m convinced, I will ever know.
These are women that know me, inside and out. They know my talents and appreciate my passions; and more importantly they know my struggles and have listened as I’ve lain out my deep shame. They have met me, raw and vulnerable, at my best and at my worst. We have celebrated and mourned together.
I have formed friendships with women that rival the picture I’ve always had of the perfect community.
Every so often, when we have wifi, I will get on social media to see what my friends are up to, who got married, who has had their babies, and who is traveling.
More than smiling faces, cute dresses, and darling weddings, I see, not so subtle, jealousy, self absorbedness, comparison, and a pointless striving to look “perfect”
As women, we have this horrible and incessant need to look perfect. And not just perfect, but we want to look like we just “woke up like this” if you will.
We want to look effortless in our perfection; as impossible as we know this venture is, we do it everyday.
We compare our bodies to those around us, we compare our bodies to the girl who “eats whatever she wants and never works out” and believe that we are less.
We compare our boyfriends, or lack thereof (amen), we compare how cute our dates looks, we “brag on our men” not for their benefit or encouragement, but so that other girls would KNOW that we are doing just this much better than they are.
We compare our vacations, our girls trips, our parties. We post pictures and (again, not so subtly) brag about our lives.
We do this because we just saw Brittany’s picture of her picnic with her size 4 girls friends in off the shoulder rompers, feasting on organic peppers, hummus, and champagne on the dock of her lake house.
We do this, not because we are really happy, but because we have to convince ourselves that we are doing ok, that we are at least doing as well as everyone else.
And if we are very lucky, we can look like we are doing better than everyone else.
This vicious cycle of living for others approval, the doing and wearing and looking the way you think will get the most compliments is the most toxic way to live.
We get jealous, we compare, and then we strive until we get others to be jealous, and to compare to us.
We have forgotten what it feels like to be happy, simply for the reason that we are content. We have forgotten the joy that comes from enjoying the small things, and we have forgotten how to be true friends.
We are so busy comparing and improving and trying to look perfect, that we neglect true community.
We are too afraid to stop looking perfect for one second to look around and be a friend to the women around us that are going through the same things.
To celebrate with those who celebrate, and mourn with those who mourn is possibly one of the hardest things the Bible tells us to do.
It’s hard to celebrate when your friend is doing well, and you don’t feel that you are.
It’s almost impossibly to mourn with those that mourn when you are in a season of celebration.
We are so self centered that we have neglected the community that we have been created to live in.
We dwell in a place of comparison, and our godly friendships suffer greatly.
Comparison is a lie and perfection is a scheme of the devil.
I know that the most impactful moments of my life are when the women around me said “me too” when I confessed a short coming, when I admitted to struggling with the lie of comparison.
The friends that I respect and love the most are the ones that met me in my brokenness and walked with me in the good and bad.
The friends that lowered the facade of “perfection” and simply lived honestly with each other.
Sisters, let’s release this need to look perfect, to compare, to post, to keep tabs.
Let’s look up from ourselves for once and begin forming community based on honesty, vulnerability, laughter, passion, and support.
Too often do we keep company with those who drag each other down, who brag, who are fickle, and who are drowning in jealousy as they try to take others with them.
Let’s trade out judgement for grace, and pour it out on our sisters.
Let’s offer grace to everyone that we meet, everyone that struggles with comparison, everyone that feels lesser in this world of perfect fakers.
I guarantee that even the “perfect” friend your trying to measure up to, is going through the exact same thing.
Be the women who showers others with grace and honesty and truth.
Be the one who says “me too” and walks with others through the hard times, the joyful times, the times we celebrate, and the times that we cry in the bathroom.
“…And the grace we show one another when we finally drop the comparisons and the catalog images and really walk with one another, on the good days and the bad days. Let’s think about honesty and helping and telling our stories. Let’s give each other a break and a little help and some soft places to land.”
– “Bittersweet”-Shauna Niequist
Let’s give ourselves a break, and our sisters a soft place to land.
