I once heard the story of a woman who was told she was being taken to a lovely hotel room where she would enjoy many luxuries and a grand view.  When the door swung open there was a tiny room with worn furniture, a small window looking into a back alley,  a meager breakfast of cold cereal on the table, and a bathroom with stained towels and a torn shower curtain.  Her expectations had been high and she was utterly disappointed and angry.

Another woman was told she would have to spend time in a nasty jail where she would not have any amenities or conveniences.  It would be a windowless cell, crowded with other inmates, with only a blanket on the floor and a pot in the corner.  Food would be brought irregularly and inmates would fight over it.  When the door swung open, she was delighted and relieved to find a simple room all to herself with a bed, breakfast laid out on a little table, sunlight streaming through a window, and a private bathroom with a toilet and a warm shower.

Both ladies had been brought to the same room but with very different expectations and therefore very different reactions.

I’ve been thinking lately about how my perspective alters my attitude.   Daily my husband and I are grateful for our own bathroom with abundant water, a comfortable bed, a kitchen with hot water ready, and a serene view.  Perhaps we enjoy these more because we didn’t have them for a period of time but recently regained them.  What we would have normally taken for granted, are now much-appreciated luxuries.

For the past four and a half months, my husband and I have shared small living quarters.   300 square feet isn’t big, but we are so grateful for it and honestly enjoy our life here.  As I work in my small kitchen, I often think about a friend’s kitchen.  No, not my friend with a well outfitted, newly remodeled kitchen in an upper-class neighborhood, but my friend who cooked on a fire in a shed behind her one room hut in the jungle in a third world country.  Why am I blessed with fire at the turn of a knob and she has to gather sticks?  Why do I have water at the turn of a lever, now even hot water instantly, but she has to go to the muddy river to wash her dishes?  Why do I sleep on a comfortable mattress and she sleeps on a mat on the floor?  Why do I have a flushing toilet but she has to go to an outhouse a four minute walk from her house?  Why do I have a big window at my table where I enjoy a sweeping view of hills and fields and she has no window or table?  Why do I have the luxury of privacy but her one room in a longhouse is separated from her neighbors on both sides by a thin bark wall?  Why do I have the hope of future improvement?  (Our new house is in process, so trailer life will come to an end someday.)  But she has had a lifetime of poverty.

Living for ten years in a third world country has forever altered my perspective.  (I think I must have been especially dense since it took God ten years to teach me these lessons.  If I had been a quick learner, maybe I would’ve only needed a two-week visit!)  I’m grateful that I look at my life in comparison to those who have less instead of those who have more than me.  What most Americans take for granted, I’m profoundly grateful for: clean water, nutritious food, hot water, toilet, stove, refrigerator, washing machine, sturdy walls, furniture, motorized transportation, roads, medical care, access to information, church in my mother tongue, instruction from educated teachers, income, instant communication via phone and internet.  I often cringe at the entitlement outlook of my fellow citizens, particularly the youth.  What makes us so special that we ‘deserve’ even the necessities of life, much less the luxuries?

Next time you’re tempted to complain about your circumstances, think of my friend in the jungle and thank God for your abundant blessings.