One girl, Eliza, stopped by the other evening while I was preparing dinner. You might recall from pictures that when you enter our house we have a long hallway that leads to the living room. When we walked through the hallway Eliza immediately stopped, took off her shoes, and then proceeded to sit in the hallway on the rug. I didn't think much of it but just said to her, "Here, come in here and sit on a chair," and welcomed her further into the living room to the couches.
It didn't surprise me in any way that she'd stopped to sit on the rug because a lot of Tanzanians sit on rugs on the floor. And I had completely forgotten about it until later that night when I walked through again and I got to thinking about it and I just kind of thought it's an interesting anecdotal story. It just got me thinking about needs and wants and taking things for granted. I know that to a lot of people it looks like we have a simple life. And in a lot of ways we do live a simple life. Our house is pretty bare bones and no-frills. But the flip side of that is the side that Eliza saw when she came into the house the other day. In the eyes of a lot of other people, what we have and the way we live is quite extravagant. When the rug in our hallway is a perfectly adequate place to sit, fancier still than what most others have in their house, and we are just using it as a pass-through, then I think it's really clear that we're doing okay.
So, it's just a nice reminder to me about all that I have and that there's always another way to look at things. And I really appreciate Eliza for helping me change my perspective about such a simple thing as my hallway. Whenever I walk through I think I'll be reminded of her visit and I will remember to be thankful for what I have.
1 comment:
I love you!
Ma
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