I Have Seen How She Does It

You have been to her house.

That is the whole difficulty and it started there. Before that evening, having people over was a thing you thought about occasionally. After it, there is a picture, and the picture is her dining room.

You could describe it now. The way things are on the table rather than just on it. The fact that she was sitting down the whole time. The bowl that everything came out of, which she clearly has for that purpose.

And none of it was showy. That is what makes it impossible. She was not performing. It was simply what an evening at her house is, and everybody was relaxed, and she made it look like something she does on a Tuesday.

And now, whenever you think about asking anybody over, that room arrives first and your kitchen arrives second, and the gap between them is where the whole idea dies.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything practical.

Nothing here is going to tell you the comparison is silly.

She probably is better at it. That may well be true and nobody is going to argue you out of it, and the version of encouragement that insists everybody is equally good at everything is not honest and does not help. What is worth looking at is not whether the gap is real. It is what the gap has been allowed to decide.

Comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise

There is a line in Second Corinthians about measuring, and the verdict at the end of it is unusually blunt.

For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. (2 Corinthians 10:12, King James Version)

Are not wise.

Not: are being hard on themselves. Not: should be kinder to themselves. Are not wise, which is a judgment about the method rather than about the feeling, and it is the kind of thing you say about a faulty instrument.

The problem in that verse is not that comparison is painful. It is that it does not work.

You are using an instrument the verse calls faulty, and a measurement taken against one other person has never once been a reliable reading. Second Corinthians 10:12 calls the method unwise rather than the feeling wrong, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who can still describe somebody else's dining room.

And notice the specific fault named: measuring themselves by themselves.

The reference point is another person. That is the flaw. Not that the other person is better, and not that the observer is worse, but that a human being was used as the unit, and human beings are not units and never hold still.

You were handed a unit that does not hold still, and a scale made out of one other woman has never once been a scale at all. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody whose kitchen keeps arriving second, and Second Corinthians 10:12 locates the fault in the reference point rather than in the result.

What you did not see at her house

Here is the practical half, and it is one observation.

You saw an evening. You did not see the eleven years.

Everything that looked effortless in that room was built out of things that went wrong somewhere nobody invited you to watch. The bowl exists because of an evening that needed a bowl. She was sitting down because she has learned, over a long time and probably through several bad Saturdays, exactly which parts can be done early.

You compared a finished thing to a thing you have not started. That is not a comparison. It is two different objects.

You were comparing a finished evening to an unstarted one, and eleven years of somebody else's Saturdays has never once been the fair thing to measure a first attempt against. Second Corinthians 10:12 calls comparing among themselves unwise, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a woman who saw the end of something and none of the middle.

And here is the second half, which is the part that has actually been costing you. The gap has not been sitting there quietly. It has been making a decision on your behalf, every time, and the decision is no.

Which means one woman's dining room, seen once, has stopped every evening you might have had since, and she does not know and would be horrified.

You have had a decision made by a comparison, and a room you saw once has never once had the authority to cancel your own evenings. The Spirit of God is the one in that kitchen with somebody who has been saying no for years, and Second Corinthians 10:12 puts the whole method in question rather than the outcome.

What this month is, with one person

So here is the assignment. Invite one person for one simple meal this month and cook the thing you can already make.

One person. And the thing you already make, which is the entire instruction, and the temptation will be to do something slightly better than that because of the room in your head. Watch for that. If the plan improves between Monday and Saturday, her dining room is doing the planning.

And pick somebody who has never been to her house. That is a practical detail and it matters more than it sounds, because a guest who has been to both will invite a comparison into the room whether they mean to or not, and this evening does not need one.

You are cooking what you actually make rather than what a room in your head suggests, and a meal that did not improve while you planned it has never once been the lesser evening. Second Corinthians 10:12 names the instrument as the fault, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that kitchen with a woman making the thing she already makes.

Then the part that does the work, and it is one instruction: sit down. Whatever it costs, whatever is not finished, sit at that table with the person and stay there. That is the thing you actually noticed at her house, underneath all the rest of it: she was sitting down, and she was there, and that is the whole of what you envied and it does not require a single item you do not own.

You are sitting down rather than producing, and a woman at her own table has never once needed anything on it that she does not already have. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with a woman who stayed in her chair, and Second Corinthians 10:12 refuses the whole business of measuring one person by another.