Dear friend,
The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why has the expression of your face fallen? If you do well, won’t it be lifted up? If you don’t do well, sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you, but you are to rule over it.”
Measuring your life against someone else's can become almost constant, a low hum you cannot switch off even when you want to be glad for her.
I am not going to tell you to stop. I have never known that to work when someone tells it to me, and I doubt it will work coming from a letter either. I want instead to just name it plainly, the way you named it to me: you are caught up comparing yourself, and it is costing you something real, some hours and some peace you will not get back simply by wishing they were spent differently.
I think of Cain in Genesis, and how the text does not say his offering was worthless, only that Abel's was regarded and his was not, and how quickly the not-regarding became the whole of what he could see. God spoke to him before anything happened between the brothers, when there was still room to choose otherwise. I notice the warning came early, while Cain's face was only downcast, not yet murderous. There was a gap there, before the worst of it.
What is it costing you to keep your eyes on her instead of on your own hands?
A prayer
God, You see the whole shape of the comparing my friend is caught up in, and how tired it has made her. Loosen her grip on the measuring, and let her notice her own life again, however small it feels today. Amen.