The book Sincerely, Stoneheart, discusses, quite frankly, the topic of comparison and of ranking ourselves against one another as we progress through our lives in a chapter entitled "Her Ladder Next to Mine." The fictional character Stoneheart is giving tips to another servant of Satan's instructing it to remind the target, a young Christ-following disciple and mother, of how poorly she measures up to other women at her age and stage of life. 

Imagine that each...has a ladder standing upright before [them]. ...Each ladder is the same height and has the same amount of rungs that represent life's milestones--graduations, careers, boyfriends, fiances, husbands, children, pay raises, home ownership, and the list goes on. 

Next, imagine that they are all side by side...with their ladders in front of them....As each year of her life passes by, she believes she should be on the exact same rung as all the other women her age. She should be in the same stage of life, having achieved all the same milestones as the women who've clocked in the same amount of years as she has.

If we're not careful, we will listen to the destructive voices of Satan, our culture, our peers, even our own selves about how we just aren't attaining the stages we should have achieved at this stage in our lives. The more we hear this distructive logic, the more we forget that God's plan is unique for each one of us. 

The more we succomb to the faulty thinking of comparing our timeline with others, the more we are pulled into loving what the world loves, and paying attention to what the world says is important, not what our Creator tells us again and again is important. 

The more we get swept up in looking at our neighbor for approval and esteem, the more we chase after meaningless markers in our lives...like our young chickens here...who have followed one another to the heater that was deemed important...even though it is turned off. 

Even though there is no heat coming from it, one chicken deemed it the place to be and so the rest climbed the ladder and joined. 

The moral of our chicken chat today is a reminder for all of us, men and women alike, to look up toward our Maker and not sideways to our brothers and sisters to assess our progress. 

Stoneheart lets us in on the truth at the end of the chapter:

There is no ladder. It's all a facade–-but terribly effective nonetheless.

God has never asked us to keep pace with everyone else. He has simply called us to walk faithfully with Him.

* Book referenced above: Sincerely Stoneheart by Emily Wilson Hussem

Progress Report:

Our chickens are 10 weeks old today and help us understand the phrase "spring chicken." These spring chickens are still weeks away from the egg-laying stage and remain energetic and awkward while continuing to grow rapidly. Stay tuned for more progress notes to come and in the meantime...

What do you call a chicken who tells jokes?

A comedi-hen!