grateful

As I traveled into China on Monday on a two hour ferry ride from Hong Kong.  My heart ached to see a third-world country for the first time. Some days I think life isn't easy,  when in fact today I realized I am one of the wealthiest people on earth both physically and spiritually.  Hopelessness came to mind, and then, sobering.  Most of the Cantonese people do not know any other way of life.  

Driving from the ferry to the factory, everywhere around me were small plots of land transformed into small huts, villages and communities from any material they could find. All around us were man-made ponds and little gardens.  Many people here stock the ponds with fish from the bay so that they will have food to survive on and also sell at the markets. The ponds here are called fish farms. The small gardens are their only source of fresh vegetables and resource for food to be sold at the markets. Most of the families do not have enough money to purchase the necessities for a house-hold. They find items to build their homes, such as bamboo, grasses, sticks, bricks from collapsed buildings. They are everywhere on the side of the streets sweeping with home-made brooms. 

My heart breaks as I see their way of life. I take for granted every day my freedom, my God, job, house, car, money, cleanliness that I have living in America. 

I am richly blessed. In the bible, I'm instructed to count my blessings and to name them one by one.  This simple instruction implies naming my blessings, or listing them ~ calling them out just for the simple fact I won't take them for granted and will acknowledge my blessings. If I acknowledge my blessings, then I easily see that I really don't have anything to complain about and that I am lacking nothing. He supplies all of my needs ~ and I am grateful.

Thank you, dear God, for all your blessings.