Same job, different uniform.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Thankful

I heard someone say something the other night that reminded me of an important fact: This is a crappy world.

Yesterday I went home early from work with a blinding headache and sprawled out on the couch, leaving the comforting din of the TV on in the background. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, Oprah was featuring the recent surge in sex trafficking of children worldwide. It was horrific, to say the least.

Ricky Martin is apparently a big advocate for awareness of this tragedy. At the end of the show, Oprah did an unrelated segment on Martin's charitable foundation and its effort to build 600 homes for tsunami victims in Thailand. They filmed the first inhabitant to get her keys, a woman who lost her only son in the tragedy. She was obviously overwhelmed by how nice the home was. She said, "God is saving me ... I can feel Him in my heart."

I cried. We humans spend a LOT of energy complaining and wishing. "I wish I had enough money for that" or "how come MY husband doesn't do that?" The truth of it is, we could be infinitely worse off. This world is not the way God created it to be; it's fallen; it's crappy. The fact is we should be thankful for all the things that DON'T happen to us. Thank you, Lord, that I didn't have to live in a hut for seven months, or that my children aren't lured into sexual slavery.

There is, however, a difference between complaining and feeling emotion over non-life-or-death issues. As I groaned when my headache worsened, and grew frustrated over all the things I had to do around the apartment before company came the next night, my husband reminded me of what I'd just recited to him about complaining. Ah, but you see, this wasn't complaining. I was in pain and feeling stress. And that's OK. It doesn't make us any less grateful for our lives to embrace these feelings. But the moment we take that frustration and morph it into what we OUGHT to be entitled to, that's the sin.

This is a crappy world. We have a loving God. Finding the balance in our attitude is the tricky part.


SHARE THIS: Facebook | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us | DiggIt! | Technorati

1 Comments:

Blogger Ibid said...




totally

Thursday, November 03, 2005

 

Post a Comment

<< Home