The Case for Competition
When you’ve always excelled in most of what you set your
mind to, it can be difficult when you don’t meet your own expectations. What
can be the most daunting is when you don’t meet the expectations other people
have for you either. I have always been a very competitive person (I make
friendly wagers on insignificant things all the time, i.e.: the most answers
correct on a crossword puzzle, games of UNO and Go-Fish). I only want to win at
things as personal goals, not to gloat over anyone. I was taught the importance
of humility but I was also taught the importance of achieving the goals you
set. As a former athlete, it came naturally. But sometimes, that competition
would become an idol. And instead of being committed to growing in an area, I would
become fixated with the thrill of “winning”.
I am actually my husband’s 2nd wife. He married
right out of high school and that marriage ended. As a result of that
relationship, he conceived a beautiful daughter. This young lady is such a
blessing to my life and I am so grateful to have her in my life. She allows me
to be a mother and I don’t know if I could ever accurately express how she has
changed my life. My husband never treats me like her “stepmother”, and neither
does she. Our family is whole, not half of anything or step. Because she is
part of him, she is part of me. I came into her life when she was 6 years old
and it seems like she has taught me more than I could ever possibly teach her.
Because we didn’t choose to share our journey to fertility
with everyone, most people would frequently advise that we needed to have a
child soon so that our growing daughter would have a playmate to grow with. She
needed someone to bond with since her mother had not gotten remarried and had
other children yet. So, surely, my husband and I were in prime position to give
her a sibling. As she grew and we were yet to produce a bouncing bundle of joy
to join her, more people started to wonder what our plans were. In their
opinions, it wasn’t up to her mother to have additional children yet…it was up
to us. We were well into our careers and there should be nothing holding us
back from adding to our family.
1 Samuel 1:2-8
2 He had two wives.
The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninah. And Peninah
had children, but Hannah had no children.
3 Now this man used to
go up year
by year from his city to
worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of
hosts at
Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord. 4 On the day when
Elkanah sacrificed, he
would give portions to Peninah his wife and to all her sons and daughters.5 But to Hannah he gave
a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had
closed her womb.[a] 6 And her rival used to
provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the Lord had
closed her womb. 7 So it went on year by
year. As often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke
her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. 8 And Elkanah, her
husband, said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why
is your heart sad? Am
I not more to you than ten sons?”
As a blended family on the journey to fertility, this story
really hits home. Not so much that my husband’s ex-wife taunted me with her
child, but that there was a built in sense of “competition”. After all, she had
given my husband something that I had been unable to do. She was fertile, I
couldn’t carry a pregnancy to full term. The fruit of her womb was bringing so
much joy to my husband while I was internally dying because of what my body
couldn’t do. There were whispers from outsiders about why I couldn’t carry the
pregnancies past 10 weeks. Instead of me going to God with my frustrations, I
started to view her as my rival instead of a teammate in parenting a beautiful
child that was already here and needed everyone to be on the same page.
But when your focus is on the competition instead of your
calling, you miss out on what you really should be doing. There were some years
that I was not totally, mentally and emotionally, present in my marriage or in
the co-parenting of our blessing. I felt inadequate to pour into her life
because of the physical tools I lacked as she was becoming a young woman. “If I
couldn’t conceive a child, what can I teach her about being a woman?” is what I
frequently thought. I didn’t even want to enter the “race” because I felt like
I had already lost. I was so caught up in what I didn’t have to offer that I
was oblivious to what I did have to offer her. Before I learned to go to God
with my requests for a child, I wouldn’t voice the desires at all. So, each
time our child questioned the arrival of a younger sibling it was a reminder of
what I could not give my family. I was silently torturing myself because I
couldn’t bring myself to explain to her that I would never be what her mother
was, a giver of life.
I didn’t even realize that I was demeaning the relationship
I had with her and with my husband. Because I had not birthed a child, I didn’t
think I was a mother. Two years ago, Mother’s Day came around, which was a day
that I previously dreaded with fear, anxiety, and embarrassment. I would
normally hide and bury my sorrows in tears of shame and guilt. Not only did I
go through the motions to celebrate my mother, I rarely wished any other women
a “Happy Mother’s Day”. But God, in His loving way, convicted my heart. Our
daughter had posted a special Mother’s Day message to me expressing how
grateful she was for my role in her life.
That’s when 1 Samuel 1 became my prayer for myself. That
instead of focusing on what other people have and what I don’t have, that I see
what God has already trusted me with. I cannot be trusted with a child of my
own if I am not faithful in my assignment with someone else’s. I have always
seen our daughter as mine but I was not fully present as I needed to be because
of my own sorrows and shortcomings. In this Scripture, Hannah went to God out
of her need and assisted her family out of her abundance. I needed to learn how
to function in the capacity God trusted me with at that time. Sometimes we can
be so consumed with what the future holds that we miss the present. It took a spiritual
slap in the face for me to see what I was missing.
My prayer for you is that you don’t overlook what’s in front
of you. What has God blessed you with RIGHT NOW that you aren’t honoring Him
with? Do you see the calling in the life that you lead? Or have you let
depression and fear take root in your life. Can I give you a prayer that I
pray, even when I don’t feel like it?
“I live a life of plenty. I lack nothing that I need at this
time. Where I am right now is for a purpose. I will bless the Lord with what I
have. If He chooses to bless me with more, I will honor Him with that too.
Amen.”
With All My Love,
Mrs. Truscott
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