"What you don't have is much less than what you do"

Clocks that have been stopped for years. Or how about the type that ring every hour, certainly the rejects of people who couldn't stand the high-pitched tones. Laminated table cloths with plastic covered remote controls resting on top. Humidity that causes play dough to get stickier if left open rather than dry out. Silk flowers in an array of tacky colors. Cement floors with huge divots. Calendars left behind by anti-AIDS campaigns. 11x14 pictures of a parent or grandparent as the sole decoration, despite all of the nails littering the surrounding walls. An African with an Alaska hat on depicting the northern lights and a polar bear. Hand gestures and recognizing every 5th word as means of communication. Full chickens (thankfully minus their feathers) thrown in with the frozen hot dogs at the supermarche. A look of wonder from a boy using an ice and water machine for the first time.

Pencils worn dull from work in a much appreciated drawing book. Naked children without a parent in sight. Muffled singing from a mouth filled with cancer. Praise to God from the lips of a boy and his mom who were just told his deadly disease is untreatable. Hands held out, palms up in prayer from a dying woman who wants her children to pass their exams, their only chance at a life. Tears from a woman as she talks about being afraid of dying, the smell from her exposed breast cancer filling the air as we listen.

I started writing down these observations last week. At this point my mind won't comply with trying to sort it all out, therefore I can't help but present it as it stands here.

I'm reading a Max Lucado book titled "A Love Worth Giving". When I am reading a book I don't own, (and don't want to lose the flow of reading by taking notes) I fold the bottom of the pages I want to go back to and re-read. This is one of those books with quite a few dog-eared pages, and I am only halfway through it. Yesterday I was reading and came across something that really hit me. Lucado always seems to have a way of simply stating ridiculously profound thoughts and ideas. Without further introduction, here is the point of this entire post, a simply profound wrap up (not to mention a lesson in perspectives)

"Yet look at our faces [of believers] you'd think our circumstances had only made a "slight" improvement. "How's life?" someone asks. And we who've been resurrected from the dead say, "well, things could be better." Or "couldn't get a parking place." Or "My parents won't let me move to Hawaii."... (insert one of the complaints you have voiced recently and I'll do the same. Now I'll let you continue reading the rest of the text from the actual author)
Honestly. We worry about acid rain in silver linings. Do you think Paul may like to have a word with us? Are you so focused on what you don't have that you are blind to what you do? Have you recieved and encouragement? Any fellowship? Any consolation? Then don't you have reason for joy? Come. Come thirsty. Drink deeply from Gods goodness."

"...So be grateful, joyful-for isn't it true? What you don't have is much less than what you do."