Friday, February 03, 2006

Thankfulness & Selfishness

I hope that this doesn't sound trite, but I have been overwhelmed lately by gratefulness, thankfulness...a feeling of being more blessed than I deserve.

I have an amazing husband, home, jobs, friends, health etc. More "stuff" than I know what to do with.

And then I watch movies like "Hotel Rwanda" and "The Constant Gardener" and wonder how I can be so shallow in my life with all my things and my safety and my comfort and my food and my health and my opportunities.

How can I be so unaware of the rest of the world? How can I be so content with my own selfish existence?

How can I know so little of world affairs that I don't even remember vaguely hearing about any of these things happening?

It makes me so sick of myself.


Dear Lord, please forgive my selfishness and materialism. Forgive my apathy. Open my eyes to this world and those around me. May Your grace be upon those so much less fortunate than myself. May I continue to acknowledge the blessings you over-abundantly shower me with.

3 comments:

Steve H said...

Very nice post. I suppose that the reason that you don't often hear about these events is due to the fact that there is no benefit for us as a country to solve these issues - there is a humanitarian reason, but no financial or political gain, so we don't act on it. You can probably throw the issues/civil war in Sudan into the pile as well.
Best-
steve @ hotwirereality.blogspot.com

anne said...

It's horrible because I feel like I don't even want to know about it, but that's so American and selfish. How can we live with ourselves when we know these things happen!?

Maybe I need to move to a new country.

Steve H said...

I think on the postitive side, America does so much for so many and we can't possibly help everyone who needs it (or can we...?). It gets us nowhere to come to the aid of countries who are going to hate us anyway.