Sometimes I think we don’t have very much.  Sometimes it seems a struggle to make ends meet. Some days I am very grateful for the chicken a patient gives me that will provide delicious soups for our family for a couple of days.  Sometimes I worry about the future.    

 

But really we have all we need.  We never lack our daily bread (or rice and bananas).  We have plenty of clothes.  We have a safe and comfortable house and beautiful flowers in the garden.  We even have cars to get to work and school. 

 

I cannot imagine what it must be like to be Maria Elena.  She is a widow with two sons to feed and educate alone.  They lived in a falling-to-pieces ramshackle wooden house, with rotting bamboo walls and plastic hung up inside to make the walls of a bedroom.  The rain came through the rusty tin roof.  The mosquitoes entered at will.  Their toilet consisted of some planks lain over a hole in the ground, with some plastic around it to give privacy.  She eeks a living out of selling clothes from door to door and knitting bags.  Sometimes they go hungry.    

 

I could not live like that.  I would think God had abandoned me and did not care.  I would struggle to find the inner will to keep going.  

 

Maria Elena says, “Jesus is my life.  He gives me the strength to live another day, to fight another day, to enjoy another day.”  

 

Imagine her delight when we found a sponsor willing to put her son through secondary school.  Her heart filled with hope for the future, for her son’s future.  The opportunity to study means the opportunity to obtain a full time, long term job, and a wage one can live off.  

 

Imagine her joy when we told her we had funds to build her a new block house, with a flushing toilet and shower.  The house means safety, hygiene, health and comfort. 

 

She is delighted and joyful, but she is not amazed.  She trusts God to provide for her.  She knows He cares for her.  When she had nothing - He was her life.  Now she has a little bit more she gives Him thanks every moment of every day.

 

When I stop to count my blessings, name them one by one, I realise my Heavenly Father pours out His wonderful generosity upon me day by day.  I have blessings in abundance.  His loving care is evident every moment of every day.  I do not need to worry.