Remember when your biggest worry was toilet paper? Don’t those days seem like so long ago? In the middle of March, I went into a convenience store in a rougher part of Green Bay, desperate for toilet paper. Once inside, I was shocked. There was a whole aisle full of toilet paper! When I asked the man at the counter how they had toilet paper when nobody else did, he gave me a frustrated look and said, “People in the hood aren’t worried about the coronavirus.”
Those words hit me hard. I knew what he meant. Here I was in my nice church clothes worried about stocking up on toilet paper. The people around me had so much bigger worries. It wasn’t that the coronavirus couldn’t affect them. It was that so much else already had. As I worried about toilet paper, they worried about their next meal. Worried about being evicted. Worried about domestic violence. Worried about the drugs next door. Worried about making it through another weak. Me? Toilet paper. Those were powerful words: “People in the hood aren’t worried about the coronavirus.”
Here’s one word to describe you and me: Blessed! How much in our lives do we take for granted? How many little problems do we blow out of proportion? How often are we blind to how we’re blessed? I think of this verse: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). I pray that the pandemic is teaching us—all of us—how blessed we are by God.
Instead of complaining today, may God give you eyes to see his blessings—both physical and spiritual blessings. From the food you eat to the toilet paper in the bathroom to the safety in your house to the forgiveness from Jesus in your heart, “Every good and perfect gift is from above.” You’re blessed! Even if you live in the “hood,” and have struggles I can’t imagine, your heavenly Father is looking down on you with grace. May Jesus provide and care for each and every one of us today. We’re blessed!
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