When Her Yes Feels Like Your No

Her post stared at me like a reflection in the mirror. She was up there sharing a message I could give, to thousands of her followers, and I had a front row seat for what could’ve… even should’ve… been mine.

You’ve been there—dying for what others have. Or you’ve been her—having what others want. If we want genuine relationships and contentment, we need to put an end to a scarcity perspective.

What is a scarcity mindset?

There’s another writer at The Grit and Grace Project named Kelsey, who is a baseball wife, relatively young, and ridiculously beautiful (on the inside and outside). With a scarcity mindset, I would have put Kelsey up on a scale and weighed my value and worth against hers.

We’ve all been down that rabbit hole but it usually goes something like this, “She’s prettier than me, she has more followers than me, she’s older than me.” With scarcity at the forefront of my mind, it would feel pointless to apply to be a Grit and Grace writer because she took my spot and my voice doesn’t matter.

Replace a scarcity mindset with abundance.

Abundance is the opposite of scarcity. With a scarcity lens, we believe the lie that someone else has fulfilled our dream. Living someone else’s dream will never fulfill ours. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is also one of the hardest for me to comprehend: Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

Whether you are a Christian or not, the frustrating part of the future is that it’s unknown. And because we’re human, we want answers and control so we grab onto the way God has been faithful in other people’s lives and declare it’s what we want, or even need, to be happy.

So now what?

Be patient and trust there is a great plan for your life and you can’t imagine how it will play out. Scary? A little. But wow is that freeing! Don’t quit because your mission feels like an uphill battle that someone else has already fulfilled. You have a gift only you can offer to the world. Put on your comparison blinders and lead a life only you can live. A life that’s full of grit and grace.