Why do other people make being happy so hard?

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God?

Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please

people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Galatians 1:10

Dear Me,

Your anger is a hunger-stricken kitten. You hardly hear it delicately mewing because drinking shuts out the noise and so does writing all those words.

Growing up, hitting is bad although you’ve been taught the mechanics of it. There’s a sense that swallowing your voice gives you the upper hand, so you learn to shut down and look inward when there’s conflict, and isn’t it better if there’s no conflict at all?

Isn’t it better if everyone’s happy?

As a young wife and mother, happiness is outlined to you step-by-step on social media. Your friends have all figured it out while you struggle into your costume and douse on the powder. We’ll do this and this and this... goes the narrative in your head when all your husband wants is for you to appreciate the here and now in its shade of nude and your daughter wants to run, legs pumping against your hard-stacked expectations.

Why do other people make being happy so hard?

Resentment grows. You’re just not good enough now, are you? And maybe the ones you’ve been stuck with aren’t either. You wonder at your daughter, a strong-willed child who has a knack for pulling back the curtain you’ve placed between yourself and the world. You wonder at your husband who loves you lackadaisically like love should be easy.

Why won’t they try harder?

You scroll aimlessly and with a vengeance and in a tumorous heartache. Did they really just buy that new house and isn’t that the refrigerator you’d sever a limb for? And don’t get me started on that new car. I can smell the freshly stretched leather from here. And is that another trip to Disney?

Their husbands are all handsome and helpful and fairytale-crafted and their kids can all play the piano and started reading at two.

And your daughter is hitting her head against the wall out of spite and biting you hard when she nurses and laughing like there’s an underlying joke in all this.

And there is, friend. And it’s you.

You can’t even stop to see it right now, your delusional eyes craving the delusion. But the un-realness of everything you’ve ever wanted to achieve is the serpent head He crushes with His heel. What side of that fight do you want to be on? Head or heel?

Think carefully, friend. Because all the stainless-steel appliances or trips to anywhere but here won’t save you now.

And in the deep down, you know that, which is why the surface always seems so tempting.

Talk soon,

Ericka