In this world of comparison, we look around at other women and we are constantly inundated with people who “make a difference.” People who start organizations. Stars who have a “platform” and speak out about the newest childhood disease, even though you’ve struggled invisibly with this disease for the past 10 years with your daughter. Women with great voices who record beautiful music, and own big houses and buy brand name clothes and shoes and cars. You see women who are doing these great things in the workforce, and owning multiple companies, and that is GREAT! Sometimes it’s not the famous we envy, but our own friends. Why? We should applaud her, because she’s worked hard, and she needs and deserves our applause. But in our applause of someone else, we should never look at ourselves in the mirror and say “I can never be that. I’m a justa.”

Justa what? You know, Justa. As in, justa mom. Nothing special. Justa kid from a poor community. Justa teen mother. Justa girl with a 3.5 gpa instead of a 4.0 and no extracurriculars on her college application but a desire to be better. Listen up! God does not make Justas, and we must stop thinking of ourselves that way! The pressure starts earlier and earlier to be amazing. To have a full-size resume attached to your college application before you’ve even graduated from high school so you can stand out from the crowd. Places you’ve volunteered, interned with, or movements you’ve started. There’s pressure to know and begin working toward your future career even before you’ve entered high school! Pressure in college to find the right job (or ANY job!) or spouse, or neighborhood, or life. Once you become a mom, the pressure continues to be the BEST mom, while working, or not working, being a wife, or a single mother.

Can we stop comparing ourselves?

The world spins not on the axis of one individual, but by the everyday actions of most of humanity. It’s in the actions of the small. The smile you give to the mailman when you drop off your mail. How you always bring 5 minutes of sunshine to your local grocery store when you shop every Friday. The way you held a door open for an elderly person, the way you teach your children that it’s okay to play with handicapped children because everyone needs a friend, or when you help a child at school because your child’s friend’s mom works full time and it’s all she can do to keep food on the table.

Yet you don’t see those small actions, do you? You may see yourself as justa mom who stays home with crabby kids all day. You may beat yourself up because while you’re at work someone else is keeping your kids and it has to be that way, but it breaks your heart that all your kids get is justa few hours with mama every day, making you seem like justa babysitter for your own kids. I know mama, I’ve been in both positions. Trust me, that is not how God sees you. You are not insignificant. You are not a justa.

Imagine with me that God is looking over the entire earth. He says “I want to create this amazing little person, but I need the perfect family for him.” He scans the globe and zones in on you. He doesn’t say “Eh, she’s not perfect, but she’ll do.” No. God saw you and He smiled.

“Her. She’s the One.”

And within you, He started knitting. (Psalm 139:13) He chooses blue thread, no, pink. He weaves into your unborn child, strength. Passion. Beauty. Independence. A love for music. A heart for animals, or others, or homeless, or children. He weaves a love of tinkering, and the art of becoming a master woodworker. He weaves anger that will need to be molded and fashioned and harnessed by you. He weaves impatience, where you will step in and teach the opposite. He gives him your grandfather’s chin, and his daddy’s eyelashes. He gives her eyes like yours and hair like her father’s and somewhere within her He will expertly and purposely create a flaw that she can only overcome with His help… as it is with each of us. And when He is through knitting, He hands that bundle of sweetness over to you, the one He scoured the earth to find.

No ma’am, you are not a justa.

For you see, the same way that God wove that tiny baby, and scoured the earth to find you to be her mother? He did the same thing when YOU were born. He knit passion, and beauty, and independence into you. He wove kindness, and steadfastness, and a tiny little streak of anger that you’re still learning to harness. He hand-wove your strengths. Your weaknesses. Your desires. Your need for Him. Your wish to paint every room in the house a bright color. He wove your love for books, and your introvertedness. Your sense of humor, and your computer skills.

He wove them all for a reason.

So many times when we find ourselves envying another woman it’s because we think our own skills are insignificant, but that’s simply not true. You were created exactly the way you are for a purpose. Your joy will be fullest when you embrace who you are and realize that God made your quirkiness for a reason, to fill a void in this world that only you can fill.  If that void is to be the mom of one amazing kid, then I promise you that God is going to make that kid do so many amazing things for His kingdom that when he’s grown, the world will look back and nod, knowing that it was all you and there’s no way you could have taken on anything else!

So mama, stand proud and rise up. Our Lord scoured the earth to find you. Your job is important, critical, hand-chosen. Do not let satan or anyone else tell you you’re a justa. Vow with me that you will not call yourself a justa any longer, whether it’s justa mom, justan hourly worker, or justa (fill in the blank). You were made for the ministry all around you—it’s waiting for you! It’s raising up those beautiful children, even though it’s hard and some days you want to pull all your hair out and skip town. It’s blooming right where you’re planted, and bringing joy to your town, your school, your workplace, your church. It is taking supper to the woman who lives next door or simply patting another woman on the back when she needs encouragement. It is you, right there where you are, being awesome exactly the way God made you. Rise up mama, because you are justa-mazing.

XOXO,

Karen