Compare, Complain, or Pray

I have had crohns disease for 12 years now and it has been a battle. You have ups and downs in life. Your weight fluctuates. Your moods can swing from one extreme to the other sometimes. You have no energy most days, yet you get up and do what you need to do. As I have been thinking about my disease and the toll it has taken on me I have to be honest and say it is hard. There are days where I want to do nothing because of the exhaustion but I keep moving. There are days where I want to crawl into a hole because I am very sick, but I keep moving. I always find it amazing that God has given me strength through all of this. I think of what Jesus went through for me and what I have does not even compare. I also think of Paul  and his troubles and mine does not even compare. I often think of those who have cancer or other diseases that sometimes take their life or make their life very difficult. There is always someone who has it worse than we do. But I am not sure God calls us to compare our lives, our struggles with others. For very person their struggle is real to them whether it is big or small. There are real emotions tied to it. There are personal struggles with everyone. I think one of the struggles that we have is that we sometimes don't deal with our emotions and feelings because there is someone who has it worse than we do and we think that we are complaining. But Jesus wants us to cast all cares on Him. To come to Him when we are weary or heavy. I don't think that Jesus wants us to compare but to cast our cares to Him. He wants to know what is going on in our life and not hide it from Him. I think that our comparing culture has kept us from interacting with our Savior in a real and honest way. Our comparing culture has driven us to hide our feelings, hurts, pains, and sickness. And as a result we stay hurt, and sick rather than be healed and restored by Jesus. So maybe we should stop comparing and start praying to Jesus. The other side of the story is that sometimes we look at people and we compare them to us in a ways that say "they have it better than I do." I think that when we do this we begin to complain to God and others rather than pray to Him. So I have to make a choice in my life and so do most of us... will we compare, complain or pray.