I once had a friend- and a fellow Mom- after I showed her a recent professional family portrait, tell me how wonderful my husband,my children, and my family were. She said “you’re so lucky that your life is so perfect.”

I looked at her like she was crazy but then I smiled as I said, “Thank you. But we’re actually normal, imperfect people.” She didn’t believe me. Because I didn’t tell her, so she didn’t know, about the eight hours of life before the five of us stood posing for that perfect photo. She didn’t know about the angry battle my husband and I had -again -over money and whose it was to spend and make decisions about our budget. She didn’t see the resentful glare my son had given me over having to get a haircut and wear uncomfortable clothes, as he shouted, “just so we can look great” in our family photo.

What else she didn’t realize was my father required almost 24 hour attention while in the hospital from a massive brain bleed. None of the six of us children or my mother wanted him to ever be alone. The injury to his brain was confusing as it was debilitating. So, we wanted at least one of us there in the hospital room with him. He was there for months. But she didn’t really know how difficult this was for me and my husband and kids. We were still maintaining a busy life with children, jobs and a variety of ministry work for our church. I know she didn’t know this drove me to exhaustion.

She didn’t see the extended time I took applying my makeup to cover up dark circles under my eyes due to long extra hours on my job with little sleep. She never saw the tears on Sunday morning, when I would have a few quiet moments thinking about my Daddy not sitting on our family pew with us, singing his favorite hymns.

I once had a friend tell me, after seeing Bible verses about hope and peace and contentment on my social media- the scriptures I used to refill my emptying supply of those very things- that she didn’t understand why I didn’t respond to her comments when she had seen me posting online. She never saw the calendar with every hour full for the tasks I had to get done. She didn’t know about the nights when I sent my husband on to bed alone, just so I could have an hour to myself. An hour just to be alone. An hour where it didn’t feel as if the world was pulling me in all directions. An hour where I didn’t need to be a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend. An hour where I could just be me.

She never saw the tears behind the encouraging quotes that I posted to social media. She didn’t know that I wasn’t posting them for others, rather, I was posting them for myself – to remind myself of the good.

I once had a woman I knew through our children’s mutual activity tell me that she loved seeing our family vacation photos on social media. She expressed they made her sad though because she wished her family was so blessed to be able to have the money to take trips together.

But she didn’t know about the hours of conversations my husband and I had had about what we could give up, what areas on the budget we could tighten, so we could make those family memories happen. Nor would she ever know the sacrifices of skipped lunches, store-brand groceries or club memberships canceled. She didn’t know about the hours of extra work at the office that those cherished family trips cost us. And as fun as those vacay were, she never saw the number of times their Dad and I fussed at, separated and settled our kids on those week-long vacations.

And too, she never saw my grateful tears, when I witnessed my child’s eyes experience the ocean for the first time, gratefully pouring out my thankfulness that we had chosen not to miss that moment. My heart overflowed that I was getting to experience these golden moments with my family. But that woman had no idea the carefully planned and sacrificial effort it required for that to happen.

Maybe you are looking at others on social media. Maybe you are making comparisons between their experiences, their families, their kids and their marriages and husbands. Maybe this comparison sets your thoughts up with a fear of failing. And so, you fret and worry about how you’re measuring up to some perfect standard that is as false as a promise written in a high school yearbook. It’s just not going to happen.

I’m here to tell you that what you are looking at is nothing more than a highlight reel of one’s life. Moments that are specifically chosen by someone to put out into the world. Just like a carefully edited movie does not show you every single take of a scene – social media certainly does not show you all it takes to do one’s life. Take faith that your journey on your life is probably not much different than any others. Yours is your life to live. Your family has a way to do life just as mine does and millions of others do.

Comparison is risky business. Your life is an orange to my grapefruit, the color purple to my orange. They may be a lot more alike than you think. But, what appears to be all clean and shiny and glorious has been as doctored up as the cover girl photo on a fashion magazine.

From experience I can be honest about this. You cannot envy another on their journey and experience well your own. Yours is yours alone. Mine is mine. Live the life God has given you. Know you are exactly where you are meant to be and you are who you are meant to be. If that isn’t working well for you then pick one part you can change and do it. But do it because it’s your life. Not because you want to live someone else’s. I can guarantee, that would not work out so well for you.

Today I’m going to begin training for a marathon, organize the past ten years of photos onto a hard drive and begin my healthy eating plan.

But if I don’t, you won’t know. It would never make my social media posts. My perfect social media posts.