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Welcome to Melanin Combos, a sisterhood of mom friends having relatable and unorthodox conversations while holding space for each other and amplifying Black voices.

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Welcome to Melanin Combos. I'm Nikita, and today we're going to talk about being patient while waiting and killing comparison.

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I know for myself waiting is extremely hard.

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It is so difficult and I think, whether you're a Christian or not, learning how to wait well and to be patient while you're waiting for something to happen is a skill and it's something that we will have to activate throughout our life.

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And not being, I guess, impatient and compare ourselves, our journeys, our experiences to other people and really just killing that, because, obviously, comparison is the thief of joy.

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But, aside from that, comparing yourself to other people can definitely lead you to having goals and dreams that actually are not even your own.

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You believe that what they have gained is a result of something and because you were comparing your life to theirs, because you think that this will help you to achieve that same joy or happiness or love or family, we, too, go on that same journey that we perceive and, yeah, it's just not productive, it's not fruitful, it doesn't honor ourself and it doesn't honor our own processes and the things that we need to experience in order to get these goals and these things that we're trying to achieve.

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So we're going to talk about that and how to wait well, and just really dive into some of the limiting beliefs and thoughts that we have around waiting and being patient and the root of a lot of our impatience and our comparison being patient and the root of a lot of our impatience and our comparison.

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So I think one thing to acknowledge is like why it is so difficult for us to wait, and what about seeing people glow up makes it difficult for us to wait for our turn.

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Wait for our turn, and I think a lot of that has to do with the idea that we always think that we are more deserving of things that other people are, despite knowing their struggle or knowing their process or knowing what they went through to get what they now have.

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I think all of us, myself included, think that we are as equally or more deserving of something.

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And I'm not saying that you don't deserve good things.

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I don't think that everything that we have that we necessarily have to work for.

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I don't believe in that.

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I think we just sometimes we get things just by the merit of who we are and the fact that we are Christians, just by the merit of who we are and the fact that we are Christians, we are children of God.

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We just get things. I think it is very clear that God gives blessings to the just and the unjust, christian and unsafe people.

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We just get things, whether we earned it or not.

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I think that's the beauty of God and the beauty of us being Christians, and just the fact that not everything we have to work for there are just some things that just happen and we just get.

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So there's that about.

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Why is it so difficult for us to believe that people are equally, or even they deserve what they got?

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Because of whatever they put into to get what they currently have.

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They worked really hard, they were very disciplined, they were consistent, they did whatever was necessary to get that and just honoring the fact that they are deserving of that, and when it is my turn, it'll be my turn.

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I think that is a difficult concept for us to reckon with, because we constantly think back to I am deserving as deserving Whether or not I did the same amount of work or I put in the same amount of effort.

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We have a selfish bend to ourselves that we think we are just as deserving as other people, and I do think that we need to check that.

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I'm not saying to demonize it or to shame ourselves because of it, but it's something that we do need to check and put into perspective.

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I think when we talk about comparison, we also need to talk about feelings of jealousy, because we don't like to confront that feeling of jealousy.

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We think it's a bad feeling, that there's something wrong, and I really am hoping that through these episodes, through these seasons, that we really reframe how we think about feelings and our emotions, that we think of them as information and we think of behavior as information, as opposed to being good or bad, right or wrong.

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Yeah, like starting to think about our feelings as information.

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So if I'm feeling jealous, what is that feeling telling me about what I'm experiencing?

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As I watch someone buy a house, as I watch someone get a promotion, as I watch someone get married to amazing person, as I watch someone have a child, as I watch someone advance in their business, what is it that jealousy is trying to indicate to me as I watch people achieve and have these things, why I'm feeling that and why I am leaning to the tendency of comparing myself to them.

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It's information. Lean into what your thoughts and your heart is trying to tell you when you feel that comparison and that jealousy and that envy creeping up, lean into that and then don't shame yourself for it.

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We're human. We're having human experiences.

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We will feel these emotions, but lean into what is it trying to tell me and how can I change the path?

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I feel like a lot of the time our emotions and our experiences pop up because we don't deal with them.

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We just allow them to simmer and sit with them.

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We just allow them to simmer and sit and we don't actually confront the root of the feeling or the experience.

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So then we constantly have to re-experience them again. I think if we can nip the jealousy at the root, then when other people are having these amazing experiences and things that we think that we are also deserving of, we won't necessarily feel jealousy.

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We won't necessarily feel some of those first emotions that we felt the first time.

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We're able to navigate through that experience a little bit differently because we're able to nip why we feel jealous.

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We're able to nip that and so we can navigate our emotions, we can navigate the experience and we can actually have true joy and happiness for someone else's success.

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So I think that's where we can start, and I guess that also leads to evaluating our why.

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I know, like everyone talks about, about your.

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Why know your? Why operate out of your, why Like it's a very like cliche thing to say, but I think, knowing why am I longing for something, um, what is it about that thing that I'm longing for?

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That will help me to achieve something else.

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Identify the goal of why you want things, and what I mean by that is, for example, if my, if I'm desiring a home, to purchase a property, to buy a home, what is it that that house is going to give me in the long run?

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So, if I am desiring to create a space that's is inviting and being hospitable to other people, where I hear laughter and children playing and there's conversation and there's mentorship happening in the home and people feel warm and welcome here, that I cook, there's like smells of food and people enjoy our company, if that is what I'm trying to create, that is my why.

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I'm trying to create an environment where people feel comfortable being here, where my door is always open, where I'm building community and connection with other people.

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That is why I want a house. That's my reason.

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I just don't want a house for the sake of wanting the house, because I like it or I like the idea of it.

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There's something else that is connected to the reason why I want that goal Right.

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That is connected to the reason why I want that goal right.

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If buying a house for you is for financial gain and setting up yourself for financial wealth, what is it about financial wealth that you are trying to create, why you want to purchase that home?

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So, thinking about the why, and in doing that, we'll also realize that some of the vehicles in which we are using to attain our goal doesn't always have to be that vehicle.

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So what I mean by that is, at my job currently, every six months, we do like this thing called like professional development, but in the sense of I'm having conversations with my supervisor about what it is that I see myself doing in the next year in terms of, like, my own professional growth as a practitioner, and where I see myself moving in the company, what I want to learn, so on and so forth.

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So we go through and make this plan for my professional development.

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Okay, so, in me having this conversation with my supervisor, I figured out that I work in education.

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I've worked in education for like 10 years. All of my adult career life has been working in education and for a good while I was like feeling really stuck about what is it that I want to do next, like where do I want to go from here?

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I want to move out of education, but I still want to teach.

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But how do I do that? And not work in education?

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So, yeah, I felt really, really stumped.

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I want to teach. I want to teach youth, I want to teach children.

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I want to teach families, administrators, people in leadership.

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I want to teach. I think that is my gift.

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Teaching, that's what I want to do.

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But teaching is not limited to being in educational spaces.

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I can teach where it pertains to anti-racism.

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I can teach when it comes to, like, consulting, like there are other vehicles that would allow me to still teach that doesn't have anything to do with a school building, right, and I think that can be applied to this conversation.

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When we think about what we are longing for and the vehicles in which that we choose to get to that end goal, is it possible that I can have another vehicle that would help me to achieve that goal, and I think in doing that, we can obviously kill the comparison, because how someone else achieves a goal is not necessarily how you will achieve that goal, and we don't need to compare ourselves to how they did it, because we know that we can use a different vehicle and our why is different as well.

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Why we are longing for that thing is different than why they are longing for it.

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So, really fleshing that out, thinking that through, how exactly can I go about achieving these goals?

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That is true and authentic to myself, and I'm still honoring myself by doing what I love at my core.

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So for me, it's teaching. That is what I love to do at my core, and now I realize that I can apply for different jobs, even thinking about adding more education, going back to school to get my master's to pursue something else that will still allow me to teach in a different capacity.

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So I want us to think about that, the purpose in which we are trying to achieve that goal.

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And my question for you is what are you longing for and is it aligning, like I said, like, are we in alignment with what we're longing for and what we think we should be doing at our core.

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Okay, so I know, like for some of us, when we feel like we have to wait for a long period of time, I mean and some people wait for things for years and it seems like it's not happening, but like God is not hearing me, he's not answering me, he's not making it possible for me to achieve this goal or to get this thing, and it can seem like not even it can seem it is overwhelming, it is daunting, it is frustrating, it is scary.

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You do feel unseen and unheard.

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Those, all of those feelings are valid and they are true.

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Like we definitely feel those things when we think that God overlooked us and gave everyone else the desires of their heart and not us.

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Those are real feelings and those are valid feelings.

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And when I think about like feeling unseen and unheard, I often think about what is it about this experience that makes me feel like God is not hearing me and God is not seeing me?

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Why do I think that God is hearing everybody else and not me?

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And I know for me, like for the longest time, having the idea that, like I have to work for everything that I have and that, like, if I'm not working for it, I'm not going to get it because, like, I don't know if God hears and sees me.

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I think it's an experience that many people have and I have definitely struggled with that and reconciling within myself that like that's not how that works and also that God, absolutely like he, sees me, he knows what I'm feeling and what I'm experiencing in each and every moment.

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And just because I'm having to wait and the waiting is taking long, doesn't mean that God is void of what I'm experiencing.

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And it also doesn't mean that I should stop sharing with him what I'm feeling and how this is annoying and that I'm frustrated and that this doesn't feel good.

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I know, like when we're waiting for something for a long time and obviously feel like God is not hearing us, we tend to like stop talking about it because it's like what's the point?

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You're not hearing me anyways, and I 100% get that.

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But I think constantly making ourselves vulnerable to have that conversation with God not only does it strengthen our faith but it allows us to stay humble and vulnerable with him.

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But I think even in those moments, we are allowing our heart to stay open, to be able to receive whatever it is.

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I think for myself, when I've stayed open and honest with God, like he has shown me things about the experience.

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And then I'm like, okay, I understand now, but I think when we are shutting ourselves off from communication with him, there he isn't even able to give us like the clarity or the understanding that we are, that we are desiring at the end of the day.

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Um, but but because we've cut ourself off from that communication, we're continuing in that cycle of wondering and wishing and like feeling overwhelmed and like God isn't hearing us.

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And, yeah, I think allowing ourselves to be open and vulnerable with him will allow not only the for communication to flow but our hearts to be open to receive.

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And when I think about like not feeling seen, not feeling heard, I think about Hagar.

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If you're not familiar with this character or this person and the whole story, I'll break it down like give you cliff notes version.

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So, essentially, abraham and Sarah they well actually I'll go further than that Abraham was promised by God to be like the father of many nations.

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He was told that he would be the father and a lot of um generations would come through his bloodline.

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Okay, so that was a promise that God had given to him.

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He is married to Sarah and she cannot have a child.

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They cannot, they cannot have children.

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And so it was just like, okay, god, for years, like decades, they are unable to have, like a child.

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So it's like, god, you made me this promise.

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How can I have this promise if I don't have children?

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And it got to the point where Sarah was so frustrated, so consumed with the fact that this promise wasn't coming true, that she took matters into her own hands.

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And I think we all do this.

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We take matters into our own hands, we try to work things out as best possible so that we can get the result that we know that we need, especially when we know that God has promised it to us.

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It's just like, okay, how can I help you along? Because, at the end of the day, you told me I'm supposed to have this, so let me help you, help me, right?

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So yeah, she decided to help God along and she took one of her maids and told her husband okay, sleep with this maid whose name is Hagar.

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And okay, sleep with this maid whose name is Hagar and, like, you will impregnate her and the child will be mine.

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So, yeah, so that's what she did.

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Long story short, sarah was not kind to Hagar.

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Hagar ran away and I mean there's a lot of like really great theology from this like story, but we're not going to get to that today.

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Yeah, hagar ran away and in the midst of her running away she had an encounter with God and this is all from like.

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This part is from Genesis 16.

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But from her encounter with God, she said that you are the God who sees me.

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For she said, I have now seen the one who has seized me.

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So she named God in that moment El Roy, because he's the God that sees, because he saw her.

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Yeah, she named God El Roy because in that moment of her desperation and of her fear, like she is out there in the wilderness alone with nobody to provide her needs, like she's just out here, and in that moment, when she encountered God for herself, she's like you're the God that sees my transgression.

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You're the God that sees my loneliness. You're the God that sees my pain, my hurt, my mistreatment.

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You're the God that sees my tears. You're the God that sees that I don't know how to care for this child.

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You're the God that sees my pain, my hurt, my mistreatment. You're the God that sees my tears. You're the God that sees that I don't know how to care for this child.

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You're the God that sees all of these things and I'm grateful that you even decided to come and visit me in the midst of like all of this turmoil and mess.

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And so she names him El Roy.

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And I think, for a lot of us, as we are waiting, remembering that God does see us, he does see what we are feeling and what we're experiencing and, in spite of everything that is going on, he is still very present and very aware of all that is occurring in our hearts and in our minds and what is happening in our environment.

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And not forgetting that he does see and that he does know and that, even though it may feel like other people don't see you and that you feel unheard and that you're being mistreated, that God does see you and you're waiting.

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Your waiting, your feelings of inadequacy are not too big or unfamiliar to God that he's unable to sympathize with that and even reckon with the fact that you have these feelings about waiting.

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So I think, like that story, that revelation that Hagar has, can definitely be applied to our low moments and our low seasons of life, and acknowledging that, yes, god, you see me.

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But let me see, let me allow you to see me, and I think what's beautiful about Hagar is that she, like she very well could have brushed God off in that moment, in that encounter.

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She could have just continued going about her business, doing whatever she was doing, and completely brush him off and not sit in that moment and encounter God.

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She very well could have done that. And, like I mentioned, like about being open and staying open, she was open and I think, maybe because she was at her wits' end, she's being mistreated by the people that are supposed to care for her.

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Being open and staying open, she was open. I think, maybe because she was at her wits end, she's being mistreated by the people that are supposed to care for her as a maid, as her role, her status in society, and she is broken down.

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And so I think, obviously for all of us, we come to a point where we are so broken down that we have no other choice but to be vulnerable.

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But I think there is the flip side, where we are so broken down that we are no other choice but to be vulnerable.

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But I think there is the flip side, where we are so broken down that we are closed off, and what we can learn from Hagar is that being open allows us to have an experience with God.

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So she was open. She allowed God to see her so that she can acknowledge that he saw her as well.

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Right? And I think that is the same like for us allowing ourselves to be open and be like.

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You know what God like. I don't like the fact that it's been five years and I feel like I have been patient.

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I feel like I have been intentional about being disciplined, about being reflective with myself and putting the things in place to either buy that house or to be married or to have this child or whatever it is that you're desiring.

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Why hasn't it happened yet? Right, and staying really vulnerable with God about your feelings, about that, and allowing God to see you in those moments.

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And I think that is the beauty, that is the beauty of the story and just knowing that, regardless of what we are experiencing, that God sees you.

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He sees you, he knows your pain and there is nothing that you are experiencing that is too hard or too big or too difficult for him.

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My favorite scripture and I'm probably going to quote it wrong is that like God.

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Basically I'm going to summarize that God isn't a God that isn't able to sympathize with our weaknesses, like he is very much capable of sympathizing with that, just for the simple thought that he was man, so he's able to connect with the things that we feel, the hurt that we feel, the betrayal that we feel, all of those things.

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He's able to connect with us because he was man.

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And knowing that that he can connect with those things lets me know that my emotions aren't too big.

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The feelings that I have are not wrong.

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I can feel these things, I can have this experience of jealousy, I can have this experience of comparison and know that I don't need to be shamed for it, but that I can give that to God because he also knows what these things feel like and he sees and knows and feels, and I can trust that if I am vulnerable with him, that he will speak to that situation.

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So I want you, I want us, to really consider how we have, I guess, decided in our hearts that God has forgotten us.

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How have we done that?

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What ways have we done that, and how can we be open and vulnerable with God and with other people about our feelings of comparison, our feelings of having to wait and thinking about more deeply our feelings of jealousy towards other people and the things that they have and the things that they've accomplished.

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What is at the root of that and how can we use that to take the next steps forward, to even identify our why, identify how we can move forward to attain those things and how we can wait on God.

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Wait with joy, wait with determination, wait knowing that if God promised something, it will happen, and being okay with that.

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I know it's hard to be okay with that and it even I don't want it to sound dismissive me saying to be okay with that, but I think there's a peace that comes when we have learned to trust God and learned that, in spite of me waiting, in spite of my annoyance, I know that it will happen in a lot of us are desiring and a lot of us will need as we walk through this Christian life and as we are being sanctified.

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Of course, you're not going to get there like immediately.

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It is a process of learning and understanding and just growing in relationship with God.

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But I think that's the piece that really helps you to wait well, wait well.

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Yeah, I think that is the piece, that I think that is my heart for you and my desire for you as you watch this episode that the peace of God will just overwhelm you to the point where you are able to trust that he will fulfill whatever it is that he's promised you, and that he does see you waiting, he does see your frustration, he sees all the things, and that he is so near and so close and that he does sympathize with everything that you're experiencing right now.

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So, yeah, those are my takeaways.

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I hope that that is an encouragement for somebody and that, as you continue to wait, that you are able to identify a lot of the things that are in your heart and in your mind and that, basically, we wait, we learn to wait.

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Well, so, yeah, talk to you soon. Thank you for listening and watching this episode of Melanin Convos.

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Melanin Convos is directed and produced by Nikita Buckner, editing audio and video production by Tamwa Latajo.

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