I had an intense envy attack while reading Facebook this week.
My second-cousin has a newborn son, her third. She wrote "After 55 days of help, today was my first day alone with the boys".
I almost fell off my bed. She had 55 DAYS of help after childbirth?
I posted something bitter.
Then I deleted it.
Hours later.
I confessed to my husband that night about my feelings of envy.
He said something to the effect of "some women have that, what's the big deal?"
Tears sprang to my eyes. "The big deal is that this isn't some stranger. This is someone in MY family". The only difference between my cousin and me, is that her branch of the family tree kept their Christian faith. Mine lost it. She had a mother, and sisters and probably in-laws, that were joyous and helpful after her son's birth. I didn't.
I'm alone.
My husband, and fellow Carmelite, looked at me and said.....
"God loves you more!"
I think I laughed sarcastically. He said "No really, your cousin is going to have a wonderful life and a wonderful reward in heaven. She's from good Christian stock and she's going to raise good Christian boys. But you--you are on the frontier. You are on the front-line of this war. You are a Special Operative. You have a totally different assignment, you're fighting behind enemy lines. God gave you the much harder assignment, because God loves you more."
