Tribulation pride

My husband called me out a month ago on my tribulation pride. He thought I had pride about what i'd been through and overcome, diminishing other peoples problems because they didn't stack up to what id been through....I may be guilty of this...just shrugging off other peoples problems as what today's culture would call "white girl problems"...even though I'm an actual white girl.

A few years ago when we were considering moving to the east coast, I was looking around online for churches in Delaware where he lived. I came upon a website for a church that looked gospel oriented and fresh. There was one testimonial video on the site. it looked intriguing. Dramatic scene opens up of a white girl in a hoodie drawn over hr eyes walking to an abandoned building late at night in the cover of darkness holding a bucket of paint...she begins to throw paint all over the side of this dilapidated building...her anguish was palpable. Scene cuts to her...Caitlyn was her name...sitting on an over-sized cushioney chair in the middle of an empty dark room with one solo light over her head...I knew this testimony would be good.

Caitlyn starts ...it goes something like this:

I was raised in a Christian home, always going to church, attending Christian schools. When I was in high school, I stated to get so bored during the sermons, sometimes I would do Suduko puzzles instead of paying attention. It got worse, she would at times get so bored sitting there she confessed how she would intentionally volunteer in childrens ministry just to get out of sitting through the sermon. She broke down, the guilt was unbearable....then she was born again when she came to this new church and wasn't so bored and enjoyed the message...she enjoyed it so much she didn't have to volunteer or do Sudoku puzzles. It sounds like Im kidding, but this was the testimony...the one testimony on this church's website. I couldn't contain my shock. Are you kidding me? Shes guilty for Sudoku puzzles and volunteer work?! Jeff and I both just dyed laughing and had fun with the story the entire week. But it was her story, and it was important to her growth. I know this is a severe example of a tame testimony, but it just led me to exalt my own experiences over hers.

Another time I was camping at the Christian campgrounds in West Olive with my kids...I'd never been there. As a matter of fact I didn't  even know it existed until a mentor and friend told me about it. It was only a 15 minute drive from where Id lived for 14 years! Its beautiful there, right on the shores of Lake Michigan, with a crazy gorgeous beach access with clean bathrooms. Its reasonably priced, there's tennis courts, a swimming pool and a hot tub. This amazing tree house in the center of a huge sandy playground for the kids. An ice cream counter  with real ice cream cones (the hard serve) for $1, I'm not kidding...$1 (this was music to my frugal single mom Jewish ears!), and a cheap sit down family restaurant with food if you didn't want to grill. They had activities for all the kids, a no drive policy during the week so the kids could ride their bikes freely without fear of getting run over,  and every Sunday a preacher would come and give a sermon. If that wasn't enough all the campers loved God, so our neighbors were this awesome family from Indiana...like 7 kids, all home schooled...and we talked and talked for a few days over the campfire about our awesome God and our experiences. It was a slice of heaven. Just me and the kids. I'd never experienced a campground quite like it. the campgrounds I was used to had drunks and lewdness, swag beer, lots of profanity, expensive vending machines, dirty bathrooms, surrounding by a backdrop of awesome natural settings. I'm not saying I never partook in any of these "other" campground activities, I'm just saying I never realized this alternative reality existed.

Anyways, the kids were swimming and I decided to pop in the hot tub with the other adults. We started talking and I'm sure my excitement about the whole place was evident. I'm sure I mentioned how new I was to all this being a born again christian for only a few years by this point. The woman I was talking to asked me how i came to believe in Jesus...so I gave her the quick but pointed version as best I could. When i was done, I asked her how she came to saving Grace. She almost got defensive with me. I felt like I put her on the spot and this wasn't my intention at all. She said she had just been raised a christian and she didn't have some crazy story where she was a crackhead and that she didn't need to. Nor did i expect her to...we all have different stories and we're all part of His-story! Anyways, it was a little awkward and i tried to sort of smooth out the awkwardness the best i could. Had it not been for people like her and her family standing firm on Gods Truth, there would be no church to run to for people like me when my world was crumbling. She was important!

Jeff feels this way too sometimes which is why he brought it up to me. I always thought it was a problem he had, or she had. After he mentioned my "tribulation pride" to me , it must have been the very next day if not the day after that....I was in Meijers shopping alone in the house goods section, by bathroom stuff moving leisurely around. I passed a couple speaking to a woman and I overheard the conversation. This was all I heard: The single woman said to the couple "yea it was so hard, I didn't sleep for like 2 days!, it was so hard". In my head I thought "2 days? really?! When I had the twins I didn't sleep for like 3 years!" And there it was, Jeff was right...and it took that moment for me to realize I do  have tribulation pride!  I believe my own story is more special or unique because of the tough circumstances God brought me through...and that somehow other peoples stories are trivial to mine...and for that I had to repent. So I told Jeff he was right, that was step one. I told him about my Meijers experience and thanked him for bringing it up to me over the years even though I never agreed with him until this point. I hope this repentance in this area of my life bears fruit in the form of MORE compassion and an ability to empathize with others no matter what they're going through.

 If you know me and I do this to you, please call me out on it...I don't want to be that person anymore. God is good, and His grace on my life and on my family and me is good enough. Here's the thing, many people have actually had serious traumatic situations in their life, loss of family members, children. Severe sexual abuse by family members, debilitating illness's and disabilities, drug addictions that ruin lives, accidents that forever  change lives, horrible horrible traumas that  I don't comprehend and hope never to have to. Yet God picks each of us, lets the trials unfold on us and gives us strength to overcome...he makes each of us warriors if we allow Him . From Caitlyn, to me, to my friend in the hot tub, to my awesome husband, to those sitting in hospitals or cancer treatment centers today, to kids living in impoverished third world countries wondering if they'll get enough to eat that day...to the girls held as sex slaves by Islamic terrorists, to the men and women stealing  and degrading themselves for a warm shot of liquid to inject in their arms, to the generations of families living in a landfills in South anerica....God has got this, we are all part of His-story....let Him make you an overcomer.

Romans 8:37
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us

1 John 4:4
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world

1 John 5:4
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith

Matthew 5:3
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven