There came a point in my early married life that I had to ask myself these hard questions:

Why is it that I always seem to want the relationships others had?

Why am I  feeling so left out?

Is there something wrong with me?

Unfortunately I wasted many years with those questions running like an old record set on repeat. I functioned in this self defeating place for years and have scars of lost and broken relationships to show for it. My heart hurts.

This post is hard for me to write as I have hurt alot of people in my path of the realization that I had everything I needed. I spent so much time trying to make friends with the people I thought would appease my feeling of inadequacy. I dumped the people beside me for the ones not that into me, yet the inept feeling could never be shaken.

My eyes were set on my future, not my present. I ignored what God was giving me in the day and jumped to what I thought I needed to complete me.

This mantra was brought into the first few years of my marriage and applied to my husband as well. I looked at other women and their husbands and asked Shad why he wasn’t doing what her husband was doing. I pressured him asking why he didn’t make the same decisions that their husband was making. It was awful and tore us to pieces.

I moved relationship to relationship in friendships only to find myself alone and pushed Shad so far away.

It was time for help. In reaching out to therapists and Celebrate Recovery, the root to my “grass is greener on the other side” syndrome was unearthed and thrown in a pit for good. I rose above the sickness and took on a new song of:

The grass grows where you water it.

I was broken and set free. I was lost and found. I was sick and healed. I was forgiven.

I think this experience is one reason I was led to blog here. I am completely on the other side of the coin. I can not imagine looking anywhere else than at the earth beneath my toes. {Matthew 6:34}

The scales have been lifted and I see so much richness in my arms reach. I no longer strive for people to complete me, but chase after the God who started and never will finish me. I find that my community grows as I tend to it. The grass grows under my feet because I water it. I don’t look over the fence and compare relationships anymore. I look at my own and see how I can further bless it. I look at new and see how I can feed it.

I seek the Lord in my relationships, especially with Shad. I created a great deal of damage in our marriage, yet he forgave me in an instant. His grace is huge because he draws from a well that is never-ending. I want to draw from that well and water away.

I pray that you lean in and water your relationships right where they are. That you open up your heart and see what God is providing you at this moment. To look only at today and what he has for you regarding your community.

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Matthew 6:34 “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

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What needs watering in your community and how will you do it? Join in on the conversation in the comments below.