Grateful

Leave behind a world that’s comfortable, one where everything you need and desire is readily accessible to you.

Leave behind a world that’s made living easy. A world that forgets what it’s like to go without. Without paved roads. Electricity. Running water. Hot water. Clean clothes. New clothes. A cover over your head. An actual home. An easy way of living.

Leave behind a world that you call home. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a brief moment, and tell me what you learn?

Tell me that you learned what manual labor really means.

Tell me that you witnessed actual true, hard work.

Tell me that you’ll never take your life—although not always ideal—for granted.

Tell me that your definition of hard has been skewed until now.

Tell me that it’s great to be American, but it’s great to see the world.

Then, let’s talk.

Let’s talk about how we American’s need to get out more often.
We don’t have it all. We claim we do. But we have nothing more than heads held high and noses pointed to the sky, because we think we are who everyone else wants to be.

Looking outside of a world that I’ve always know. Outside of a world that makes me feel comfortable. And outside of a place I’ve called home all my life, I see people who are genuine. Kind. Giving. Thoughtful. And most importantly, happy. They may have far less than I do, and far less than I ever will, but they have something more than I think most American’s will ever have.

They “make do, or do without”. And believe it or not, they’re happy. The genuine, the real, the true happy that comes from within.

This is not me bashing on America, because we all know that I long for that rich land, that free country, those glorious plains. This is me realizing that, although we think we, as the American people, need to do so much good for other countries (and we do, we could all use a helping hand), but this is me hoping that maybe one day our heads will be level with our neighboring countries, our eyes on the same playing field, and we’ll welcome what WE, the American people, can actually learn from another country. Another culture. And another way of living. I long for this world to learn from each other. To get outside our comfort zones and experience, explore, and expand our minds, to all the world has to offer.

If nothing more than a take home message to myself, it’s that life is beautiful wherever I go. That someone out there is dealing with something far more difficult than I am or ever will. That the trials in my life are merely trivial. That no matter who I am, where I live, what career path I choose or don’t choose, that no matter what mistakes I’ve made, no matter how ungrateful or stubborn I may be at times, God loves all his children the same. Whether you live in Africa, Asia, or America, His love is infinite. His love is eternal. And he loves us all the same. Now, if only the world could grasp that concept, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, than we’d be in business.

A word to the wise: get out, travel, see the world, let your eyes be opened, and your personal world be changed for the better.