The surprising reality of envy: it shades grace
Surprising reality of envy: it doesn’t let you see others with a whole heart. It shades grace.
If you’ve been following the homeschool arena, whether through conferences, conventions, Pinterest, old school blogs, Periscope, other social media avenues, you’ve seen this. The more “perfectly” curated all is, the more is going on that we don’t see(and truthfully, it doesn’t all need to be on display for worldwide audience). We get clouded by curation and forget how human the person on the other side of the screen truly is. At least, that’s what I did.
Let me backup a bit, because this is a lesson on envy, how it clouds grace. How earthly measuring sticks won’t measure up.
Back when free printables we’re arriving on the homeschool scene, ones that looked professional and could be found quickly when newborn Pinterest required an invitation, I found a mom blog with free printables. I pinned her site as fast as you could say free and revisited weekly. She was my preschool internet mom bff and her work saved money I didn’t have.
I went to tidy my Pinterest pins last year and clicked her old faithful link out of nosiness. To my giddy surprise, her blog is alive, modernized, fully active, even more beautiful than I remembered. I sent her a thank you to let her know how all her freebies had made homeschool on a small budget possible. I asked how her kiddos were doing as they’d been inspiring for me. (That, if I followed this freebie printable plan, my kiddos could have a magical home education experience like hers.)
She replied, much to my delight. Much to my shock, they’d home schooled one year, the year she started her blog. The year her husband walked out. The year she was left with young, barely elementary-aged children. The year she learned to monetize her blog with ads to put food on the table. The same year I’d felt sorry for myself trying to find free printables, found her blog, wishing my life was more like hers.
She still monetizes the blog with ads, now sells the beautiful printables, her kiddos are growing and thriving in their local school district, two have graduated after long term struggles, she uses flatlay photography instead of pictures of her children on the blog, she and her children have done years of group therapy, and she helps facilitate a support group for women starting online entrepreneurship.
And this is what I learned.
I wish I’d told her thank you sooner. Not so I’d know the “real story”, but so she could’ve known her work was changing lives for four young kiddos with a desperate mama on the other side of the country. I wish I’d told her sooner. I held back because I thought my own messy story was too shame-filled to offer another woman gratitude.
Everyone,
even you,
even me,
has a story.
A place and space that felt nothing like grace, but a heart that desperately needed to feel seen and held while walking hard roads. Because encouraging words let the light in, they help point you to Grace.
