Lysa opens up Chapter 11, discussing about a trip, she and other P31 ladies had taken to Ecuador. There they met a woman who lived in a shanty that had been carved into a mountainside.
The lady’s home, consisted of a cot, two of her five children slept in, and in another room was two more cots, one for her and her husband, and the other for her other three children.
Cardboard was used to patch holes in their home and the lady discussed how she gets up at 4:30 a.m. to make breakfast over an open flame. Her husband, left at 5 a.m. to look for work. Most of the day is spent walking to a market because there is no refrigeration.
Once a week, she carries the family’s laundry to a village washing hole to clean them by hand. No washing or drying machine.
When she was asked for what she needed prayer for, what did she ask for?
Not for money.
Not for the ability to wash and dry clothes.
Not for food.
She asked that she would be prayed for, to continue to have the strength she needed to serve her family.
This is humbling, because we are blessed with even just the basics that this woman doesn’t have.
We are blessed that we can complain we dont’ have enough “time in the day” to read the bible, to get the laundry done, to clean, to make dinner, and yet….we are surrounded by conveniences and just the basic simplicty of electricity.
Was I humbled?
Yes.
How many times do we grumble about the browsers not loading up? Or maybe, we had to walk across the house to our laundry room, not washing hole, laundry room, to do today’s laundry and yet, we can’t make it in time to take our kids to their recitals or maybe, just throw a ready made meal in the oven.
This is not to be critical, but just a personal, really a personal wake up call, that when we grumble….wow, compared to this strong, and she is strong, woman in Ecuador…I feel…well…selfish.
What do we really have to complain about?
So it takes us an extra 10 minutes in traffic to make it to the coffee shop or resturaunt….but we are lucky and yes we are blessed that we have that.
It makes, I don’t have time to read the bible, or make a meal that I can run to the grocery store, down the street, seem like, well…nothing.
It’s like we really don’t appreciate just the sure basics of what we do have, until…well…we see the other side of the world where, having what we have, is really a blessing to them and something we take for granted that we’ve been lucky, really lucky, to have.
What does this story remind me of?
It reminds me that beyond just saying praise when the uglies come out, it’s also a reminder that things can be much much more difficult when we get out of the world and really see the world that others live in.
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18, New King James Version)
We have to stop letting our circumstances define us, and instead, we need to let our Heavenly Father define us. Instead of reacting to the changes of our circumstances, fix and claim our promise in and through our Heavenly Father, who is there permantely and without the fluctuating changes that rule our lives sometimes.
Lysa challenges us with this question,
“What is the overflow in my life?Is it a frustrated attitude or grumbling? Or is it praise and thanksgiving?” The reality is that circumstances in our life will always change. One day people will be friends with us and the next day they will be our worse enemies. One day we will be on top of the world and the next day,we will be scrapping rock bottom, but the one thing that NEVER changes, is our Heavenly Father.
He is and He will ALWAYS be there and constant.
We are reminded on page 139,”Peter and John were so confident in both their position as children of God and in the promise of His faithfullness that praise and thanksgiving became their way of life. Their postresurrection circumstances were never easy, often dangerous. And yet (notice the ,”and yet”, that Lysa writes) their response was to boldy proclaim from their praise-filled, thankful hearts. “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” It was the overflow of their lives, and it became the routine of their lives.
So Gentle Reader, I have to ask you as I ask myself, the circumstances of our life will and can change; It may also never change either, but through it, good or bad, can we challenge ourselves, no matter what, instead of speaking words of grumbling, speak words of praise AND thanksgiving to our Glorious, Heavenly Father.
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