He Picked YOU

We women are notorious for playing the "comparison game". Our kids act up in the grocery store and the image of our friend with 5 children who always act perfectly polite comes to our mind. Our house looks like a tornado touched down in the living room and that friend whose house looks like a photo from Better Homes and Gardens fills our thoughts. We take up a hobby like playing the piano or scrap-booking and instead of enjoying our success and our individual gifts, we think of the woman who is so much more talented than us. I could go on, but I'm sure you're well aware of what I'm talking about.

This can be a real problem when we bring this comparison into our marriages. I've been on a date with my husband; laughing, talking and having a good time when the tall, thin and blonde waitress comes to the table and I forget what I was saying because I feel so inadequate in my looks. Why do we do this to ourselves? It's a little bit like the fight my children have at breakfast sometimes. One of them will say, "I finished eating first!" " No, I did! I won!" I'm thinking, "You won? Both of you got to eat. It looks like everyone's a winner!" Silly, I know, but so is our comparing ourselves with other women.

I was talking to my husband about this recently, and he told me, "But honey, I picked you!" It's the simple truth. Of all those girls that were available, he pursued me and still shows me his love every day. I didn't look perfect then, I don't look perfect now, but he thinks (as hard as it is to believe!) that I am perfect--for him. Better yet, like God, he knows I'm not perfect and loves me anyway.

I am reminded of the story of Amy Carmichael, the great missionary to the abused children of India. As a child, she prayed for the Lord to change her brown eyes to blue. He didn't answer her prayer and years later, she thanked Him because her brown eyes were a perfect disguise as she made herself look like an Indian temple worker in order to rescue girls from the temple. Even as a child, I would wish my eyes brown instead of the green that photographers always call blue. I would practice my smile in the mirror and still be disappointed when the school photos came back. My husband once told me that the first thing he noticed about me when we met was my smile and my eyes. Go figure! Maybe I should just leave things the way God made them.