Humbled Again

I've got several books on my shelf that I've read in the last year. One is about a boy who was a child soldier, a Lost Boy of the Sudan. Another book portrays several children's and young women's experience in child slavery and the sex slave trade. The reading material on my eliptical is a Vogue. The attitude in my heart well, I'm humbled once again.

Trying to unpack, clean the years of other people's funk and making my house pleasant to all my senses has left me somewhat like a, well, a spoiled brat. I was stopped in my tracks when one of my favorite decorating bloggers admited her moment of what she calls "sickness" the, I want a pretty house and I want it now, attitude while well Haiti.

I was stopped in my own tracks by her confession. I was stopped in my stewing, complaining stressed out about color, decorating, boxes upon boxes etc. I have a house, an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter.

I could be living in a mud hut.

I could be living in a tin shack.

I could be living out my life in a big black body tent.

I could be living in a Red Light District in a third world country.

But I'm not.

I'm in America.

I am safe, healthy, educated, happy, warm and dry, fed.

I tell God he gets my everything. I give what I have but is what I give what He wants? Give me a beautiful home Lord and I will use it for you. I am guilty of trying to manipulate God into getting what I want under the guise of ministry. Foolish me. God has given me a beautiful house and He will use it for His good. What I need is an attitude adjustment and a major paradigm shift.

I am a work in progress. Maybe as I clean the mold out of the tile in my bathroom I can remember the gunk deeply etched in my heart that God has had to use more than a tooth brush to get out. What ever the course, I want to go at it with a thankful heart and not an attitude that says I deserve or earned anything. Thank God Jesus has already taken care of what I deserve.