I am a people watcher and I’m afraid I also eavesdrop on people’s converstaions in public. One afternoon, I was standing in line at a clothing store behind a couple with two young children, a boy whose shoe size was 12 kids and a girl who wears 4 youth.  As they came to the register, the mother and daughter left to look at a different store and the boy and his dad remained to pay.  As the cashier folded and sorted the clothes, the boy stated, “She has more than me.”  As a mother, my first instinct was to reassure the boy that things would even out but the dad didn’t hesitate, “Dude,” he replied in a matter of fact tone, “She is always going to have more stuff than you, you just need to get used to it.”  I almost laughed out loud!  Wisdom passed from father to son.

It is easy to compare, to measure what we have and what we think others have.  “It is not a constructive exercise for us to try and compare our circumstances to another….The Lord tells us that there is going to be adversity along the way and He even suggests to us that our afflictions will be consecrated for our gain….Ultimately we can be reassured that the promise of eternal life is for everyone.  Everyone will be rewarded for their faithfulness equally.  If you endure to the end, you’ll be blessed.  It might be hard today and tomorrow and the next month, but it will not always be hard.  You can do this as you exercise faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement….’Be of good cheer for I will lead you along.’  That’s a promise from the Lord.” (Elder Gary E. Stevenson, No blessings denied the faithful)

There will always be someone who is going to have more stuff than you.  There will always be someone who seems to have endured too much or who seems to sail easily through life.  There is so much we don’t know, so much we don’t see but we do know that our Heavenly Father knows, He loves us, and He has a plan for all of us to have “all that [our] Father hath.” (D&C 84:38)