One foot in front of the other. That's what I'm feeling today. I'm just exhausted for some reason. But, I have no right to complain. Which brings up the subject of complaining.
I was doing my dinner dishes when I looked over from the side I was rinsing in to see that the plug had been dislodged and my water was draining away. Grrr. That made me so mad! My mind immediately says, (quite out loud through my big mouth), "this house is such a money pit....like I can afford the hot water and soap for it to just trickle away....stupid plug (while I frantically tried to secure it in it's place)....Lord, can't you see that I need to move from here?....look at this nonsense....(and on and on for a bit).
Suddenly, a realization grips me. Was it God reminding me of what I needed reminding of? Or, was it me catching myself and helping myself to be reasonable and more understanding? I don't know. What I do know is that suddenly and without warning, I saw a mother holding her infant. The child is withered and losing its battle to survive. The mother has no milk in her breast to feed the child as she herself hasn't eaten in many days. Their future is uncertain. She doesn't expect her child to survive much longer and she has no hope of saving the infant.
That's a horrific mental image. That's a heart-wrenching scenario and I'm weeping with the thought of this mother..who is all too real. She is, and her child is. They two together are dying right now somewhere.
That's a typical scenario being played out daily somewhere in this world. And yet, I'm complaining because my hot, soapy water is draining away and I'll have to pay a bit extra for the hot water heater to generate some more, and then drizzle more detergent in. Why am I bothered with such chores? Because I have so many dishes from all those meals I get to eat everyday so that I have to get up from my leisure and do the things we Americans have to do. We have to drive our cars to the store and buy more food. We have to stand around in the horrible store and fret over which product is the tastiest. Then we have to dig around through our money to find the right change....so horrible a time consuming thing. Then, there's all that lugging of groceries into the house. Thank God the air conditioner is on because I think I would just die if I had to come into this house without air. (all said with sarcasm)
Even as I type those words, I feel a horrible disgust. Disgusting that I could complain over something so trivial. I have absolutely no right and no justification. I have earned nothing. God has blessed me a million fold. I don't have an understanding of hunger, or how it feels to have that nagging sensation that turns into an insane gnawing. I don't understand the misery of inescapable heat. I have never experienced the tragedy of my child being too hungry to lift his head to look at me with pleading eyes. I have never experienced that kind of helplessness.
In America, complaining is such a common and expected thing, that we have services set up to take someone's complaint. Customer service representatives get paid to sit on the phone for 8-10 hours a day and just take our petty complaints. "I paid $3,000 for this wide screen wall mounted television, and now the remote don't work. I want my money back, or I want another new television. NO..I don't want another remote..I want a new television." Says, the complainant.
"I want," "I want," "I want." "I'm entitled." "You owe me." "That's not good enough, I want a new one." "I can't believe I'm being treated this way, who's your supervisor?" Pompous, arrogant, sense of entitlement. We should be hoping God doesn't reverse the roles and let us experience the other side of humanity. The darkest side. The side where there's little to no hope and no one is there to save us.
Lord forgive us. Forgive us our ingratitude. Forgive us our gluttony and sense of entitlement. Forgive us our greed and self love. Forgive us for serving ourselves to the point of fatness and then feeling like it's an injustice when we can't have what we want. Forgive us Lord, for it seems as if we know not what we do.
I was doing my dinner dishes when I looked over from the side I was rinsing in to see that the plug had been dislodged and my water was draining away. Grrr. That made me so mad! My mind immediately says, (quite out loud through my big mouth), "this house is such a money pit....like I can afford the hot water and soap for it to just trickle away....stupid plug (while I frantically tried to secure it in it's place)....Lord, can't you see that I need to move from here?....look at this nonsense....(and on and on for a bit).
Suddenly, a realization grips me. Was it God reminding me of what I needed reminding of? Or, was it me catching myself and helping myself to be reasonable and more understanding? I don't know. What I do know is that suddenly and without warning, I saw a mother holding her infant. The child is withered and losing its battle to survive. The mother has no milk in her breast to feed the child as she herself hasn't eaten in many days. Their future is uncertain. She doesn't expect her child to survive much longer and she has no hope of saving the infant.
That's a horrific mental image. That's a heart-wrenching scenario and I'm weeping with the thought of this mother..who is all too real. She is, and her child is. They two together are dying right now somewhere.
That's a typical scenario being played out daily somewhere in this world. And yet, I'm complaining because my hot, soapy water is draining away and I'll have to pay a bit extra for the hot water heater to generate some more, and then drizzle more detergent in. Why am I bothered with such chores? Because I have so many dishes from all those meals I get to eat everyday so that I have to get up from my leisure and do the things we Americans have to do. We have to drive our cars to the store and buy more food. We have to stand around in the horrible store and fret over which product is the tastiest. Then we have to dig around through our money to find the right change....so horrible a time consuming thing. Then, there's all that lugging of groceries into the house. Thank God the air conditioner is on because I think I would just die if I had to come into this house without air. (all said with sarcasm)
Even as I type those words, I feel a horrible disgust. Disgusting that I could complain over something so trivial. I have absolutely no right and no justification. I have earned nothing. God has blessed me a million fold. I don't have an understanding of hunger, or how it feels to have that nagging sensation that turns into an insane gnawing. I don't understand the misery of inescapable heat. I have never experienced the tragedy of my child being too hungry to lift his head to look at me with pleading eyes. I have never experienced that kind of helplessness.
In America, complaining is such a common and expected thing, that we have services set up to take someone's complaint. Customer service representatives get paid to sit on the phone for 8-10 hours a day and just take our petty complaints. "I paid $3,000 for this wide screen wall mounted television, and now the remote don't work. I want my money back, or I want another new television. NO..I don't want another remote..I want a new television." Says, the complainant.
"I want," "I want," "I want." "I'm entitled." "You owe me." "That's not good enough, I want a new one." "I can't believe I'm being treated this way, who's your supervisor?" Pompous, arrogant, sense of entitlement. We should be hoping God doesn't reverse the roles and let us experience the other side of humanity. The darkest side. The side where there's little to no hope and no one is there to save us.
Lord forgive us. Forgive us our ingratitude. Forgive us our gluttony and sense of entitlement. Forgive us our greed and self love. Forgive us for serving ourselves to the point of fatness and then feeling like it's an injustice when we can't have what we want. Forgive us Lord, for it seems as if we know not what we do.
Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank God, sister!
Deletewe were just talking about this at dinner tonight...
ReplyDeleteSometimes I'm just so ashamed to be an American, when I consider this type of thing in my country. Customer complaint centers!
Delete