Nothing Compares To You

 

I think I do my most “profound” thinking when I’m either taking a shower or from 2:00am-4:00am while I should be sleeping, but am awake contemplating all kinds of thoughts. I will admit, these are also the times I take to pray a lot. You see, I don’t like my mind to fill with thoughts that can turn into negative ones — so when I see my thoughts turning, I instantly (in my mind) fall to my knees and start talking to God. If I were to really fall to my knees, due to my age and arthritis, it would take me a very long time to get up again. 

I started thinking about church, because I got up at 7:30am, did my usual preparations and turned on my internet tv to Harvest Christian Fellowship and enjoyed Pastor Greg Laurie’s message about temptation. Prior to his message, they always have announcements, a time for giving and an awesome musical worship. My mind kept capturing the dedication of each person that shows up so early in their day to prepare to provide us with a church service. As you know, California is experiencing an end of drought rain forecast that hasn’t been seen in a long time. I live in Mill Valley and my companion and I are actually stuck up on a hill, because all the King Tides and rain have flooded all our main arteries of transportation to leave the area, even just to the next town. I couldn’t help but think how each staff and volunteer of Harvest got dressed, drove to church in the rain and cold, but still served. They not only do this once in a while, they do it every week. Many of those same people do it all week long. You see they have been called to serve God in an amazing way and their dedication is worthy of notice. As I kept thinking about their dedication, I remember times in my life where I was a volunteer serving in different capacities in the church. For quite some time, I served and it got to the point to where I was at church more than I was at home and it started to become an issue with my household, so I had to pull back. You see I have this problem of it has to be all or nothing — which isn’t good. I think most people are able to find balance and enjoy doing multiple things with balance. 

I couldn’t help, but also think about how my endurance to continue sometimes lacks. I started to think of different things I’ve done in my life and how at some point, I’m all in and then for some reason, I fall back on what I was involved in. It seems circumstances tend to dictate my ability to continue for some reason. My church activities changed with the seasons in my life. As my children were growing up, I was very involved in children’s church. Then as they grew, I ended up serving in other areas such as early teens, then got involved in women’s ministry, in small group worship utilizing my vocal and guitar skills to lead our small groups in singing together. Then it ventured out into community service. I served both in church and secular community service activities. I do love serving. But in my thinking process, I couldn’t help but think, but I was never as dedicated as some people who just have continued to be consistent in their service to others.

I started thinking about my art. Since 2006, I’ve really enjoyed creating art using all types of mediums. There are seasons where I am doing art on a daily basis and then I go on a hiatus where I don’t do any art. As I thought about why I stop, it usually involves me comparing my art to someone else’s and then I think to myself, why do I just keep creating things when there are so many other talented people out there doing and making a difference with their art.

Most recently, my companion bought me a beautiful Yamaha upright piano. I just love it. I love to play it for hours. I try to get on it at least once a day. But again, with my music, I play guitar as well. My guitars sit on their lovely stands or are put away in a case to protect them, because I decided I wanted to have nice lady fingernails. Once my nails get a certain length, I can’t play the guitar, because my nails hit the strings and the sound emitting is not pleasant to the ears. So, I play the piano, where nails are never an issue. However, I am not a proficient pianist. There was a time in my youth, when my brain was sharp and I could comprehend and retain reading music — so I was able to play both left and right hand notes of more complicated pieces. Now I use improvised left handed chord progressions with not so complex right hand melody playing. I enjoy playing the piano for myself and for worshipping God. However, even though I’ve played the piano since I was eight years old, my piano playing is very basic piano playing. Again, I listen to other pianists and think, if only I had endured and kept my brain sharp enough to memorize the more complex level of note reading and playing. My guitar playing is very basic as well. I quite often watch the worship team guitarist playing their guitars like masters — much like my brother and I ask myself, Cindy why did you quit learning the guitar? There are only a couple songs where I move my left hand up the frets of the guitar, but I really wanted to learn how to bar chord and I never did. So again, I’m able to sing to my guitar playing and lead others to sing songs using many of the basic chords, but I’m not proficient.

Then there is an area of my life which I blame on being on the spectrum. I’ve always had a hard time with reading comprehension. It’s only been recently that I’ve started to understand biblical texts and comprehending its meaning, due to a lot of prayer and being mentored by many other people in gaining an understanding — I believe God has opened my mind to receive. However, I can quote scripture using at times what I call my Cindynese version of the quote —however, I have a hard time reciting as to where to find that quote. THANK GOD FOR GOOGLE SEARCH and concordances. I am able to key in my memorization and these resources tell me where I can find the text in the Bible. Again, I am so impressed by many people who can, not only recite the scripture, but are able to say where exactly that verse is found. As a Christian, who was baptized at 12 years old, there was a time when I had all the 66 books of the Bible memorized and knew exactly where to turn when those giving a message told me to turn to particular scriptures. Like many people, there was a time when I became totally reliant on digital bibles rather than using the many tangible Bibles I have collected throughout the years. As I’ve aged, I prefer studying from my actual Bible. But as you could probably guess, when I started getting back into the word I saw names of books I hadn’t even thought of reading for years!! I thought to myself, Cindy, how could you have become so complacent as to not remember that there were books of the Bible you had forgotten existed? For me, these are the times I start doubting myself.

One of my biggest struggles in this life since I turned 30, has been my weight. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve put my all into losing weight and accomplished my goal — only to fail on my endurance to keep it going and keeping the weight off. It has only been recently in my 60’s now that I’ve finally came to the conclusion that I will never be “thin” again in this lifetime and that I am content with just being healthy. Being unhealthy due to weight issues is not fun and I don’t EVER want to have to revisit those issues due to weight again. I am one of those people who has given in and decided to get a chemical assisted medication to help me maintain a healthy weight. You would think that would be enough for me right? No, then I see the results other people have been experiencing on another variation of the type of medication I am taking and they are getting much better results. When I first started taking Ozempic, I didn’t know there were “better” medications where the results of weight loss exceeded my regime. I was so satisfied with my results, until I started seeing the results of others who took the “better” ones.

I share these thoughts with you, because I know in my many years of life that I am not alone in my thought processes. I was reading one of my many inspiring books that talked about how we need to learn to be satisfied with what we have and who we are and to stop comparing ourselves to others. I read that it was like telling God that what He created in us is flawed and that we aren’t good enough with how we are. Then I feel bad, because I know that although I  “compare” myself to other’s accomplishments, I have been blessed with many areas of my life that many others have not experienced. Namely, individuals in third world countries and what they have to endure on a daily basis. Even thinking of those who are in poverty or live in horrible living conditions in our own country.

We are all unique in ourselves and we need to count our blessings and remember that nothing compares to you. That doesn’t mean that you can’t set up goals for yourselves in areas where you want to improve upon for yourself, but quit putting pressure on yourself to strive for goals only because other people have accomplished more. We all have our own gifts and achievements that God has given each and every one of us. As I write this I’m reminded of a curriculum lesson that a teacher who I knew used to teach her classroom every year — You are somebody special and there is no one else like you. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just be content with who we are and not compare ourselves to others, but rather celebrate what we all contribute to this society?