A Little Perspective

I have a few problems this morning. I've not been sleeping well this past week with the time change. I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep. I drag bone weary through the remainder of the day. Then, my cell phone died. I can't text anybody and Michael busted his 300 series finally at bowling--blew it out of the water at 320! I had to borrow my friend's phone to text hubby the news. And the leaves!! I've raked and raked and raked and after I thought I was finished, I look out only to see the yard covered in another brown blanket of more fallen leaves...ugh! They're still falling!!

Really? These are problems? I can't sleep but I have a warm bed to curl up in at night and half a dozen cute fuzzy blankets to wrap around me with snowmen and snowflakes and Santa with his reindeer...I have a roof over my head and a furnace that churns warm toasty air through every room in my house. Oh, and don't forget the stack of books piled up on the nightstand--the problem there? Which one to read tonight...gosh.

My cell phone died. Never mind my tablet runs just fine--games and Facebook, Weatherbug and email all at the tap of a finger...I can easily message anyone for now until I get the phone situation fixed later today. And there's always the house phone. Still...such an inconvenience. Poor me.

And the nerve of those leaves!! I've busted my back raking day after day, bagging and hauling and dumping them over the fence...The fence. That surrounds our yard. Behind our house. Our house cooled and protected by all those trees with the leaves that keep falling...where I hang birdfeeders and suet and complain because the squirrels steal the seed faster than you can bat an eye.

I've been following a blog this week about a mission trip to Ecuador. My uncle posts pictures of his trips to Nicaragua. I see what real struggles are, read heart rending stories of families praying for sponsors to help them provide food and medical care for their children. Sponsored children get three meals a week. Three. Meals. A week...a week...My cupboards overflow with PopTarts and cereal, buns and bread and pitas so I can have my choice.  Big brown eyes with round empty tummies, mothers' hearts breaking, and I can have my choice. Children growing up in dumps, living in squalor--cardboard and plastic sheeting strapped together, slopped in mud, to make a home. A home! Filth like I've never known in my life. Poverty eating the hopes and dreams of precious little hearts.

Who am I? Who am I that I have been blessed with so much? What have I done to deserve all that I have been given? My child has never missed a meal--he may not have wanted to eat what was put on his plate, but there has always been food. His dresser drawers need shoved closed because they're so full. When he runs a fever, the doctor is a phone call away (even if the cell phone isn't working and I have to call on the house phone...) I have a medicine cabinet full of Tylenol and Pepto and Triaminic Cough Strips. I can zip to the store and buy ginger ale and crackers and chicken soup. I don't even think twice about it. I'm blind to how easy my life really is.

My problems? Not problems. Eye openers to blessings. Gateway to gratitude. There's a little boy on the other side of the world who I am blessed to help. I think how little I can actually do for him in the midst of all that I have and it doesn't make sense. Why--why have I been given so much and him so little? My problems? Not problems. I am humbled and grateful and hopefully more aware of all that I have been given and all that I can do and give in return.