Greener
This song writes explicitly what the saying means through implication. Another person's life often looks better from the outside, but when we enter into all of its fullness, we find the same hardships and joy even if they take on a different form.
I've noticed this a lot when it comes to life stages. I'm single, unmarried, no kids, but I have friends with families. And while most of the time it's wonderful, sometimes there can be a tension there.
I'm thankful that by the time my friends started having kids, God had worked me into contentment over my life stage. He showed me that my singleness is a treasure and that His timing is good even if biological clock rhetoric tries to say otherwise.
But this tension is often present for single people, who long for families, watching their friends enter and live in that very life stage which they so desire.
But the comparison works both ways, and it always works to create resentment.
As a young adult saying I was tired, I heard a lot, "You don't know what tired is until you're a parent." And while for a lot of people, that's true, it assumes your lifestyle while also implying, "my life is harder than your life" instead of responding to the person struggling. It's a small refusal to accept someone else's burdens because yours feel worse. And it's something we all do at one time or another.
My sister-in-law was sharing with me that she was more tired and busy as a student, and yet there's a different kind of busyness and tiredness that comes from the complete responsibility over other lives.
I don't deny that being a parent is one of the hardest things in this world, but I also know being independent can be hard, and yet neither is just hard. Both are beautiful in their own ways.
There are genuine joys I have as a single person that are not accessible to parents and married couples. But there are also genuine joys available to married couples and families that are not available to single people.
The same goes for hardships. No life stage or circumstance is without its trials. In big things and in daily ones. But there's beauty on the other end of those trials; there's beauty even in their midst.
And this is where the line caught me, "it looked different but exactly the same." Someone else's life is so different in the details, and we use those unfamiliar details to fuel something picturesque, breeding discontentment even for the life we love and bitterness towards those who have what looks so good from our outside perspective. But when we step in, we see the same mess our life has, the same pain, the same struggles, and yet also the beauty that when appreciated, makes it all feel worthwhile.
Friends, be kind to each other. Be compassionate. Don't let your burdens pile up but invite others to carry them with you, and don't judge the burdens of others when you're the one being confided in. We all have our own struggles and our own joys, but the beauty of community is that we can invite others into our story and be invited into theirs. In the place of difference we can find equal value, equal love, equal care for each other. Let us be a people who builds each other up no matter our hardships or theirs. Let us be a people who befriend those in stages outside of our own and lead one another to life. Let us be a comfort, a support, a joy to one another and let us find solace, strength, and friendship in one another.
This isn't just a matter of kids or no kids. This is any life stage. Work, hobbies, school, health, etc. Resentment is too easy. Comparison is too easy.
Their grass is green, but it's not greener. From where I'm standing, our grass is green. And I thank God for the beauty of the seasons He has us in. Seasons that deserve our celebration and not our regret even as we ask for support.
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