I used to wake up every morning to the alarm on my iPhone and glimpse through my alerts, which then instantly took me to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. Sitting in my warm, just slept in bed, before my feet had even hit the floor, there I was scrolling online, immeshed in other people’s lives and already comparing my own. One friend woke early to fix all four of her children a made from scratch pancake breakfast complete with homemade orange juice. Another friend was celebrating an anniversary and spoke about how amazing her husband was above a picture of the two dozen roses he had given her along with a beautiful, gold heart necklace, it’s diamonds glistening back at me. Feeling less than, before my day had even began, I would crawl out of bed, by now feeling defeated. Should I have gotten up earlier and slaved away in the kitchen making homemade pancakes and orange juice too? Was she a better mom than I was? My husband had never gotten me two dozen roses before. Was my marriage even solid? These are the thoughts that played through my mind while I sauntered downstairs to pour myself some coffee and pour a bowl of cereal for my own hungry child.

Galatians 6:4-5 tells us “Each of you must examine your own actions. Then you can be proud of your own accomplishments without comparing yourself to others.” Spoken truth right there. Afterall, God made us each different from one another, so how can we compare ourselves to anyone else. We have our own set of blessings, talents, gifts and circumstances. When we stop seeing the things we have been given in our own lives and look instead with envy to what others have, we impair our spirit and our soul. We are not being who God made us to be.

I decided to part ways with my phone (not completely of course) and dragged out my husbands old alarm clock from the 1990’s. I plugged it in, placed it on my nightstand and watched as my kids stared in awe at this dinosaur from long ago. (they asked me if it was from the 1970’s). I set the dial to a christian radio station so that the first thing I heard upon waking was joyful music. I wanted to free myself from the pull of my phone first thing in the morning, where comparison lurked. I wanted to wake up to a new day full of hope and a lot less despair. I wanted to take a breath and be present before I dove into the online world of perfection and comparison. I wanted to stop feeling robbed and instead feel poured into. That old alarm clock did the trick, innocently singing out to me that it was time to wake up and start my day. Nothing else.

As I’ve been waking up without my phone, I’ve found that I also have been using it less throughout the day. Where I would constantly be checking it from morning until night, I now guilelessly seek it out only a few times a day. In doing so I have, in a sense, seperated myself from one world and immersed myself in another. One that is more real and even a little messy at times. I feel so much nearer to God than I ever have.

I start my day with an old alarm clock, a cup of coffee and His word. No distractions, no outside noise, only stillness. He reminds me each morning that I am enough. I don’t need to look for validation online. I don’t need to cook homemade pancakes or be given two dozen roses to know that I am loved. The stolen kisses from my husband and how he gets the coffee ready for me to brew each morning, the big bear hugs from my kids and the excitement on their faces when they see me as they step off the bus and everything else in between is enough. (Even bowls of cereal). I am enough. My life is immeasurably enough.

You are enough to friend.

You are enough every single day.

You are enough even when the world says you aren’t.

God says you are enough and His is the only opinion that genuinely matters.

When you choose to walk away from distractions and put your phone down, you see what matters, you see what is real.

When you stop envying what others have and wishing that it was yours, you find contentment and peace.

When you stop wasting your time eyeing other people’s lives, you start finding the beauty in your own.

Know deep within you’re being that you are absolutely, unequivocally enough.

Keep in mind the words above from Galatians, write them down and place them somewhere you will see them each time comparison sneaks up on you and tries to steal your joy.  Remind yourself of who you are and how unique you were made to be, and if it helps, do like I did,

get an alarm clock.