A Thanksgiving thought

This is a short email note I sent out to my family and just wanted to share. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Love you all


Hello to the family from Australia!

I just wanted to send out this quick hello to say Happy Thanksgiving! Don't we have so much to be thankful for? Every single one of us have had food to eat, a place to lay our heads, different clothes to wear every day, cars to drive, we have more than we could ever really need. Even though money may have been and may still be tighter in the past this year, we still have had money in abundance. Without even realizing it, every single member of our extended family is living in the top 10% of the entire world in wealth. We have more than most people have in this world even while in a recession. Despite some struggles through health issues, none of us have had our lives threatened by the water we drink or the food we eat. There are so many people in this world who die every day from a lack of clean water and other simple necessities.

The interesting thing is, all of our privilege that we have enjoyed either part or most of our lives often becomes the greatest curse we will have, rather than blessing. What if our privilege really just blinds us to what is really important? If there are people dying everyday from lack of something I have so readily, whenever I want it or need it, isn't there something wrong with that? How caught up in our own world often are we?

This Thanksgiving is going to be really different for me. While I am thousands of miles away from home, I am also preparing to leave in just 9 days now to go to a country where clean water is not always readily accessible, where people live in extreme poverty, where people die everyday from lack of medical support for AIDS and other disease. I'll be living near orphans who are afflicted with HIV/AIDS and have been rejected most of their lives, near tribal groups who have never heard about the God who loves them so much, and also near Americans and Europeans who spend thousands to come and relax on the gorgeous beaches. Can you believe all these things could exist in one place?

I am getting ready to experience all this first hand. To see it and be in it and live in it. But I am more than thankful, because I am preparing to meet people who's lives are drastically changed by the smallest gesture. They don't need cell phones or fancy cars, but what they need is love. Isn't that what we all really need?

Let's give thanks for the things that money can't buy, that recession can't stop, and that last forever.

"For God SO LOVED the world THAT HE GAVE His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

-Laura

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