Spoiled Rotten

James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

I’m so spoiled, it’s ridiculous. Seriously. Even if I don’t compare myself and my life to people in third world countries or even to the poorest people in our country, I’m spoiled. In fact, all I have to do is compare myself to myself.

And what exactly, you may wonder, prompted me to come to this conclusion? Rain. Yep, rain. I dawdled around the house Saturday morning when it was looking like it was going to rain and waited to go to the grocery store after it started raining. A little drizzle going from the car to the store wasn’t bad, but it was raining a little harder by the time I finished. I had very strategically parked the car next to the cart return area and I smartly put the cart in the covered area so the groceries would stay dry, and then proceeded to load up the trunk. The “little more than a drizzle” steadily and quickly became a pretty good rain and the hoodie that I thought was water resistant turned out not to be. I was already in a grumble-y mood because long gone are the days of three loaves of bread for a dollar and the cost of eating healthy…fresh fruits and veggies instead of prepackaged food with two dozen ingredients I can’t pronounce and have no idea what they are…is exorbitant. Sigh.

So, there I was getting grumpier and grumpier because it’s a little chilly on top of everything else. Sixty six degrees after 80+ degrees feels chilly even in March. Wow. What a spoiled brat I am. I have money to buy food. I have a car to transport the groceries. I have a heater in the car if I want to use it and dryer at home for the hoodie. When I get home, I will pull into a garage and walk a few steps into the kitchen. Some things won’t even make it that far because they will go into the extra freezer in the garage. And yet I grumble. How ungrateful can a person get?

I grew up the only child of a single mom who didn’t drive. We walked to the grocery store. On big grocery days we waited for a cab and sometimes the wait was long. After I got married I lived in a townhouse with an assigned parking space yards from the house and walked up a sidewalk and a flight of concrete stairs to get to the front door. I did that for 25 years in the cold, the heat, the rain, and the snow. There were times that our funds were so limited that I clipped coupons voraciously and went to three different stores to get the best deals each week. One week I fed a family of 5 on $15…quite a feat even for the 80’s. Another time I stood outside the grocery store and cried when I dropped the glass bottle of catsup I just bought because we didn’t have the money for another one until the next pay check.

And yet, there I was Saturday grumbling about a little bit of rain. Convicted. Instead I need to be thanking and praising God for every one of my many blessings! The only problem with that is that if I really took time to notice my blessings, I don’t think I would have enough time in one day to count them all. I better thank God for the computer, the Internet, my mind, and my English teachers, stop typing and get started on that prayer!

1 Chronicles 16:34 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.