Relationship Status: SingleSample

She’s Living My Dream

I attended many weddings in the past, but it had never bothered me to see others getting married even though I wasn't. But something changed in 2009 when my best friend was about to get married. Nothing could have prepared me for the jealousy I battled when she started seeing her Mr Right, got engaged, and started planning the wedding. Boy, was that hard! We had been single together, but now her time had come. It marked a different phase in my singleness. At that point, I didn't appreciate a lecture on being "the right person" so that I could experience what she was experiencing. I wondered if something was wrong with me. Was I not beautiful enough, intelligent enough, or outgoing enough?

My jealousy strained our relationship, but I assured her that there was nothing wrong with our friendship. I tried hard to be excited and play the good bridesmaid role during the wedding planning, but I struggled as I was critical of many things. I felt like such a terrible person when I was alone because I couldn’t be happy for her. I knew I shouldn't be jealous, so I prayed to God for forgiveness. Yet I continued struggling with these feelings until God convicted me one day. He asked me to confess to my friend that I was jealous of her and ask for her forgiveness.

As you can imagine, pride got in the way, and I quickly buried that thought and continued planning the wedding. Things went from bad to worse as tensions were building. Finally, I could no longer shake off the conviction from the Holy Spirit, to be honest. I mustered up the courage to call her. I hesitantly started, "…I'm so sorry I've been jealous of you since you got engaged. You are living my dream...” After I had said that, the heaviness and guilt that I had been shouldering lifted off, and we reconciled immediately. God showed me that my friend's happiness did not diminish my chances of happiness. The Bible teaches us that God is good to all, and he shows compassion to everyone. God’s goodness towards one person doesn’t take away his goodness towards you. He is an abundant God who can satisfy all our desires. So, let’s learn to celebrate what God is doing in other people’s lives even as we wait for Him to answer our prayers.