Competing

This has been a week.....

To be honest,  aren't they all these days......

The battle to walk in peace, love, humility,  to be the peacekeeper and not the taker is a constant present battle....

The war is real.... 

Compete:  to strive to outdo another for acknowledgement, a prize, supremacy, profit; engage in a contest.....

This is the fuel to war,  the gauntlet that is thrown in our face daily and we feel the need to accept the challenge to fight,  to participate in the madness of the competition that is an ever constant antagonist in our daily world.  

We are built to be winners because we have never been taught that sometimes the greatest prize is the loss,   the walking away from the challenge that we are determined to win,

In my younger days I loved to play tennis then it adapted into racquetball in my college days where I was introduced to the game.    In college the game was easy because they would pair us up with individuals that were learning the game.   The real challenge in the game was when I played at the local Y with individuals that were seasoned players.   I played regularly with two different ladies,  one was the mother to a guy I graduated high school with,  she beat me basically every week.  It was humiliating at the time...  but every week I would go determined that this was the week I would win... and though I did have a few wins,  my losses outnumber the wins.   But it was the competition that motivated me to go,  the thought that I would win.     I think this was healthy competition in my life.  It didn't become unhealthy until I began to analyze the fact that I was grasping on to the defeat that was becoming a regular pattern.   Not looking at it from the stand point that I was getting exercise and spending time with a mentor in the game and in life.    I was focusing on the competition not the participation.

Now that I look back,  I wish that competing in racquetball and losing was my biggest obstacle, my largest competition.  

Today the competition is for my soul,  my mind,  my love, my uniqueness, my very life and it is fierce.   There is such a competition to be the best wife,  mother,  employee,  daughter, boss,  the best blogger, the perfect person,  the perfect follower of Jesus,   or the perfect non-follower....  the competition to be the best,  to be perfect is overwhelming.  

Our days are competitions for seeing who can be the best.....   we expect the best out of competitors,  that they will be the best husband, wife,  mother, father,  employer, employee, son, daughter, friend....

I think you get the point.

Where is grace....   

Where is mercy....

Where is selflessness....

The focus is solely on the competition...   it becomes so heated that we will do anything to win at the game or role we are playing that we don't care who we take out in order to win.   We say we are for everyone getting the trophy but in truth we are not,  we want it all to our self...   we want to be noticed as the one standing as the winner.      We want to always be the one that is right......

Last night I ran to Krogers to pick up a few items....   I was weary from the week....  wanting to just get out of the rain and into my sanctuary where I can just be....   I was at the self check out and working on bagging and paying when this individual came and stood inches away from me.  I swear I could feel her breath,,,  well, it seemed like it... but she was to close to my personal space for a stranger...   I needed to pay and I needed to use my debit card,  I had to shift between her and the machine....   I was put out... frustrated....   craving my sanctuary...   I paid and she immediately was trying to start her purchase before I could get my three bags off the machine.  The two behind me were empty which frustrated me even more....  finally I looked at her,  pointed to the machines behind me and told her she could probably process her purchase quicker than I could move out of the space...   she went over to the empty machine.    Then someone wanted my buggy and laid their hand on it before I could remove my three bags.   I guess my gaze was not loving,  not merciful and definitely not selfless....  because she moved to the empty buggy behind me.  

I was put out.   I was tired....   I was empty.   Weary from the competition of the day, of the week for the need to be perfect.....   giving into the competition and losing....  

Weary for the lack of selflessness from myself and others I walk this walk with daily.  

Tired of living in this world that is competitive,  that expects that everyone should win and receive the trophy and the winner should always be me but yet feeling the struggle of the constant competition between the expectation of always being the winner and not knowing how to embrace the loss and that sometimes the loss is where the biggest lesson is learned.  

Maybe it is just time to step out of the competition period....

To choose to not be a competitor in the game of perfection.     To not take up the glove that is constantly thrown down.   But choose to look up,  to look up where my source that fills the empty places resides.   Where my TRUE help is located....  

Time to stop the competition in the comparison but to embrace the uniqueness that HE created me to be.....    to step off the court and on to the path....      To embrace the losses,  to choose to forgive regardless....  to lay down the need to be right and pick up what HE has to offer,  the peace.   The love.   

Maybe....  

I hear Him whisper yet again,  Come to me daughter,  weary daughter,  I will give you rest and I will carry your burdens....     step away from the competition and enjoy the journey.  

Look up to ME your source,  not your competitor...