Why Gaze in Envy?

"You women are nuts!" my brother-in-law informed me the other night on the phone. He and his family have moved within the last year, and his wife is having trouble finding a place to fit in. To explain the problem I have to first tell you that his wife, Polly, is young, cute, attractive, and thin. She is intelligent, a part-time nurse, and a full-time mom and wife. She knows her Bible, believes what it says, and follows what she reads, knows, and believes. As they say on Foyle's War, she is morally hygienic.

So why doesn't she fit in, even at church? Because when other women look at her, they think they don't measure up, and so they ignore or exclude her. Knowing women as I do, I imagine that they feel inferior to Polly and don't want the humiliation of trying to be her friend and then being snubbed by the "beautiful, popular girl." What they don't realize is that she only wants the same thing they do, friendship.

Polly is in her 30s, not a young girl, not a teenager, not even a 20-something. The women who have ignored her are her age or older. So when will women start acting like women instead of girls? Probably never.

I have a friend in her mid-40s who refuses to wear polish on her toes because she will "look like a circus elephant." She often feels unattractive because her weight is not the "American standard." When I look at her I only see kindness and compassion shining out of her beautiful, light-colored eyes. When she laughs the whole room chimes with happy bells. It is a gift to know her.

Another friend, in her 30s, says she has an inner fat girl who tells her awful things about herself. This friend is training for a triathlon, but she isn't strong enough to tell the fat girl to shove off.

Yet another friend berates herself because she doesn't know how to clean house, cook well, or be a homemaker the way "everyone else does." She is intelligent, mothers two great boys, and wants to serve God.

Other friends suffer from depression, but they won't tell you because then they would look like failures. Marriages suffer, but no one is the wiser because people will talk about them. Two of my favorite teenaged students suffer from anorexia because they have to excell, have to achieve, have to have something that makes them special. My heart aches to know that this is only the beginnng of a lifelong struggle they will face because they were born female.

"Mount Bashan, majestic mountain,
Mount Bashan, rugged mountain,
Why gaze in envy, you rugged mountain,
at the mountain where God chooses to reign,
where the Lord himself will dwell forever?" Psalm 68

Mount Bashan is greater, more majestic, than Zion, yet it was on Zion that God chose to dwell. There are two lessons in these verses:

1. Looks aren't everything. What people see as fabulous, the Lord may choose to pass over. The Lord, the creator of the entire universe, has chosen me, and you, to be his dwelling place. He doesn't need us to be the thinnest, prettiest, smartest, best mother and homemaker, or most mentally healthy. In fact he doesn't need us at all. What he desires is that we need him.

2. God blesses each as he desires. Why are we envious of each other's blessings? Do oak trees envy maples their red colors in the fall and dye their leaves to avoid the golden yellow that will certainly show? Do the Rockies wish they could be as voluptuos as the Himalayas, but say, "At least we aren't as flat as the Appalachians"? Does Niagara feel inferior to Victoria Falls? I mean, not only is it taller, it's named for a queen, for goodness sake! No. Instead, they beautifully bask in the blessing that God gives, instead of sulking in the darkness because God gave a blessing to someone else as well.

Last night I stood before my husband and asked a nervous question, "Do you find me attractive?" Yes was his response. "Did you find me attractive when I was 22 pounds heavier?" I managed. Again, his answer was yes.
"So why do you like me either way?" I ventured.
His answer was the only right answer. It is the answer that God says to each of us. God doesn't care about our looks, our mind, or our possessions. All he ever says, all he ever cares about, all he requires is,

"Because you're mine."