Marketta Gregory: Shed self-judgment, favor strength

• Marketta Gregory writes that the light can highlight our differences and that we should embrace them.
• Marketta Gregory: Shed self-judgment in favor of strength

Leave it to C.S. Lewis to write things that chase and haunt me.

That passage about describing light to people who had always lived in darkness? The one where he explains the same light falls on each of us? Yes, that one:

Is it not quite possible that they would imagine that, since they were all receiving the same light, and all reacting to it in the same way (i.e. all reflecting it), they would all look alike? Whereas you and I know that the light will in fact bring out, or show up, how different they are.

It's that last line I need on repeat.

Light brings out difference — and I spend most of my time trying to look the same, afraid of not measuring up.

As a mom who works outside the home, I read about the wonderful things homeschool moms and stay-at-home moms do and I make a mental mark on the door frame. I'm not quite as tall as I thought.

I flip through the business pages and see people 10 years younger than I am who own their own businesses, who have climbed higher on the corporate ladder, and I make another mark.

"How am I doing?" I ask, with my back bent under the pressure of my own expectations.

Sometimes I feel so low and so small that I forget I was designed from the very beginning to be unique, to absorb and reflect God's light in my own way.

As long as I can remember, I've been in love with words. I use that gift in ways that I hope help people. My house is often messy and disorganized, but I try to take the time that's needed to really listen to my family — in a way that only I can.

This has been an especially difficult year for me, one dotted with painful illnesses and heart-splitting deaths, and there has been spiritual growth that no marker can capture.

When I measure myself in that light, my back starts to slowly straighten, and I reach for the wash cloth to wipe the doorframe clean.

Light expects differences, not comparisons. If we allow it, it brings out the radiance in me, in you, in each of us.

My prayer is that we'll all shine in 2015 because we all matter and because we all have light to share.