I saw you on those pages and read the things that you've accomplished: your title, your place, your position, the people around you... you seemed loved by all and you were looking good. I found myself admiring you, and then found myself wondering why i was even admiring you.

Why was i drawn to your fame and success?

In the past, i never really understood the thing about fame and success because i felt that it wasn't something that applied to me. It was something "other people" faced, and although there will always be a degree of wanting some kind of fame, i knew that part of me was well in check, and it was something i could handle easily.

But when i saw what you had and who you had become, there was a sudden longing to want to be associated with you again.

I surprised myself with the intensity of my emotions. I felt like i, and what i had, was lacking. And i somehow wished that i, or the people around me could measure up to you... so that i could have someone or something to boast about. I used to take pleasure in speaking of you, did you know that? I loved how people gawked and thought that you were so amazing.

I can't do that anymore though. Though there's only one degree of separation, we're figuratively worlds apart now.

Catching myself in that instant, i felt the reality of what has been said before.

Why do i need to concern myself with other people's lot in life? Each of us has been given an individual and unique life to lead, all of them different. Some of us bask in the limelight, some of us work in the background, all at different times, in varying degrees, or none at all. It's just the way things are.

When we place our self worth against the standards of the world, we will live quite consistently sad and dissatisfied lives until we see ourselves redeemed in some worldly accepted way. So for the rest of the time in life, we'll be consciously or subconsciously longing and slaving away to reach and grasp some kind of redemption to comfort ourselves, that we've managed to achieve "a level of dignity".

For those few minutes as i sat there with dread and envy rolled into one, i tasted the true and raw emotions of what it was like to feel worthless according to the world's standards. And it was heart wrenching, condemning, bitter, evil, heavy and depressing.

As i said, than i began to wonder why i was even feeling that way... and i collected the pieces of myself that were all over the floor and came to realize the truth: My worth and my identity is in Christ, in God. And when Christ is who i'm rooted in, what the world holds in acclaim hasn't even got a place of importance in my heart. Truthfully, what God thinks of me matters so much more then anything or anyone else. Really, nothing that i achieve matters in His eyes because he's looking at my heart and soul, not what my heart and soul achieves. I'm already special, already perfect and pleasing to God.

In those short moments, i experienced both the insecurity of worthlessness, and the security of being found in God, swinging from heavy heartedness to blessed freedom. And i know that i wouldn't want to compare myself with anyone ever again, because it really hasn't got any logical sense to do so. My life's worth is not measured by the number of titles that the world clamours after, but by whether i have, in my capabilities, lived out this life's lot that i was given, to the fullest.