Notes Along the Journey 08: Perspective and Gratitude

I recently started reading a new book this past week entitled “The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree” by Nice Leng’ete [it is part of my ongoing development aid and poverty alleviation research efforts]. The book is an amazing biographical account of Nice’s life growing up as a member of the Maasai in Kenya. It highlights both her fight against the practice of female genital mutilation and her subsequent human rights advocacy work. I am only about a quarter of the way through the book but I am simply amazed by it. Highly recommend it to anyone currently reading this blog. Having said all that… let’s get on to the business of this specific blog.

One chapter in the book is titled “A Maasai Wife.” It details the story of Nice’s mother and the daily routine that was her life as a wife and mother. To make things easy, I’ll let Nice tell you the story in her own words:

“After her marriage, my mother’s day began, like that of most Maasai women, before daylight. She woke up before her husband and children to get the fire started . . . After the children were awake, dressed, and fed, she milked the cows. Then she went for water. She would walk miles to get to a clean stream. She carried water – a twenty-liter barrel on her head and a five-liter jug in each hand – and sometimes a child on her back. Then she stoked the fire again and boiled water for ugali, or porridge. The rest of the day was housework and cleaning clothes.”

Along the top of the page, I wrote the following words: PERSPECTIVE and GRATITUDE… A daily experience of life that begins before daylight with a long journey to find and retrieve water. I walk a few steps to the kitchen. She walked miles. I have unlimited access. She had only as much as she could carry back to her home. I can afford to be wasteful. Her life depends on wise stewardship. I really need to recognize the comfort and convenience of my life as a Divine gift. More gratitude. Less complaint.

I could probably say a lot more here, but I think the point is clear. And since this blog is mainly a personal record of my own journey, I really don’t need to elaborate much on this one. For myself personally, the message was straightforward and simple. It is easy for me to become blinded by the “struggles” of my day-to-day. I forget that much of the world faces challenges and obstacles that would probably force me to immediately drop to the floor into a fetal position. I don’t really know hardship, or adversity, or weariness, or persecution, or hunger, or need, or despair. Not really. I am and have been largely blessed by a grace I’ll never understand. And to that end, I would be much better served to spend less of my time complaining and far more of my time expressing gratitude. Yep. That’s it.

My God, grant me the strength and grace to live out Your word in the realities of my daily life; to embrace and model the truth that “godliness with contentment is great gain” and to indeed “give thanks in all circumstances.”