envy feels blue

One of the hardest things I’ve faced in my expat life is envy.

Yup, that sin we all know is there and that other people struggle with it….but do we ever feel comfortable saying that WE do?

We have lived overseas for one and a half years. I was prepared for and ready to tackle giving away most of our earthy possessions, living by faith, financial hardship, culture shock, homesickness, language acquisition, and stress. The one thing no one prepared me for was envy.

I never even saw it coming.

For a long time I lived the paradox of grieving the life we left behind and loving the new life we are forging here. Such a beautiful and challenging journey. Around January I feel like I finally left the homesickness behind and had a really strong root system established in Japan. I was proud of the work we’ve done, relieved, and settled. It’s like I turned a corner emotionally after the Christmas holidays. Things in Japan stopped reminding me of what I missed in America, and I just started being reminded about the things I love in Japan: people, places, food, smells….when you’ve lived somewhere long enough, you grow new roots and enjoy nostalgia in your current location: “Oh this night air smells divine…it reminds me of spring last year right before the cherry blossoms bloomed….” or “wow, I’m really craving that ramen I had last year…”.

Then things started happening. I found myself getting really upset over other people’s experiences: their family comes to visit, mine hasn’t. Their family comes again, mine hasn’t. Their friends are here for week, mine aren’t. They get to visit America, I don’t get to. Guys, these feelings can be crippling. It honestly reminded me of dealing with infertility all over again (if that paints a picture of the weight of these feelings). It was like a gray cloud followed me around. It wasn’t always overhead, but it was there, in the distance, promising rain sooner or later. It was awful. It IS awful.

I couldn’t shake these feelings. Was I homesick? Was I not? Is envy a part of the grieving process? I’m not sure….I thought I was grounded here…I thought Japan was home. Maybe it’s not….if X, Y, and Z are bothering me, it must mean I’m not content with our lives here. I must miss something.

See, those feelings were explained away as homesickness prior to January, because Japan was still so fresh. But lately, Japan is a lot like home, but why I am I experiencing these crippling feelings?

The more I dug into my emotions and heart I realized what I was experiencing wasn’t homesickness at all. It was envy.
And, that’s really hard to admit.

Envy has the ability to give you soul-crushing grief, moments of anger, confusion or discontentment.
I knew I had to work on this. During the past few weeks when I hit my lowest, I decided that the Lord needed to hear how unfair this all was. If I wasn’t saying it out loud, I was saying it in my heart, and my heart grew dark. I found myself being easily swayed by other’s circumstances. How unhealthy of a missionary, or ANY life is that?  To spend your time being emotionally swayed by what’s going on around you? So, does this mean that from here on out when someone’s family comes to visit I just need to cancel my plans and sulk under my covers? Absolutely not.

“Wow Lord, I know you raised up so many people to sacrifice to bring us and keep us in Japan, and I’m super happy for your generosity, it took us 12 years to get here, but wow, I’d really like it if you could make the playing field equal here. Why do so and so get this? Why can’t we? I don’t even care if I don’t want it…I want it because they have it!”. That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?  We see it in our children when they fight over silly McDonald’s toys. We see it in the Lifetime movies, TV shows, and in the lives of others.  But do we really see it in ourselves? Do we see the rippling effects it has?

Envy keeps you down.

“Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?” Proverbs 27:4

Wow, I wish I could tell you I am writing this post because I have it figured out, and the Lord has brought me through this. Well, that’s not true. I will likely be dealing with this to some extent, for many years. With that said, will you join me in praying? Will you pray that the Lord will help steer me to His word and not to comparison? Will you pray that I will receive the blessings of contentment and not be grieved by envy?

Let’s dialogue about this for a minute. We may no longer be 13 year old junior high school students wishing we were a size 2 like the girl two lockers down, but we all struggle with the sin of envy to some extent. To be honest, a huge reason I felt called into missions was to leave behind the American dream and yet here I am, same sin, different vocation.

Do I see, do you see how how envy affects your heart? Envy is not life-giving. It destroys.
“A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones” Proverbs 14:30

Do you feel what it’s doing to you? Sure, this may not be a sin we deal with every day, or even once a month, but chances are, we deal with it during some season of our life.

Envy is isolating. It lies to us and tells us that no one can understand or empathize with you, because after all, our hearts dictate what we’re envious about, right? We all want different things.  We’ve pushed ourselves out on a raft and we’re stranded without oars. A lie I tell myself (and often believe!) is that no one can empathize with me. Everyone else has had close friends and family visit, we’re the only ones who haven’t. So, I’m alone and no one can relate to me, therefore, I have a right to be angry and discontent. That’s being stranded without oars…that’s me, having chucked the oars away from my boat and praying I’ll float off into the distance. How can that type of outlook be helpful?

Let’s roll up our sleeves, “name it and claim it” and dig into the Lord’s desires for our hearts. Let’s help each other. Let’s use our own struggles to be a light to someone else. Let’s look the Lord and His good gifts to receive contentment and joy.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” James 1:17.

“Yours, Lord, is the greatness  and the power and the glory and the majesty and splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name”. I Chronicles 29:11-13

-Kaytlin ケイトリン