Ungrateful Kid

If you walk in my house at any given time of day, you probably wouldn't get much further than the front door.  Honestly, I often wonder if the stacks of boxes yet to be unpacked have regurgitated their contents on the floor, leaving me disgruntled at their appearance.  Toys litter the floor. Trucks, tractors and trains for any unsuspecting foot to find.  And that's all before you can get to the kitchen.  My children lack no good thing.  Their closets are teeming with clothes, almost to the point of overflow.  They never have to worry where their next meal will come from or if they'll be able to participate in activities most young children enjoy.  They know how to live with everything...and that's where we have our problem.

It is becoming a regular occurrence that at least twice a week our four year old son doesn't like what's for dinner.  Our policy has been that in order for him to determine whether or not he likes it, he has to eat four bites of whatever is on his plate.  He usually has his mind made up about the time we say it's time to eat as to whether or not he's going to even try it.  Dinner was no exception.  He dug in his food.  Crumbled his bread all over the table in front of him.  And even asked for more to drink because he didn't like what was on his plate.  I couldn't help but think that I'm raising ungrateful children.  Ungrateful. Really?  They show little regard for discipline and no appreciation for what they've been given.  I grieve.

Over the last few weeks, unbeknownst to our children, our family has been exposed to poverty beyond what I've seen, other than homelessness, in America.  Poverty that leaves children not knowing when or where their next meal will come from.  Poverty that leaves the disabled without the resources to feed themselves more than once a day.  Poverty that is not without joy, thankfulness, appreciation and the desire to be loved.  Poverty that wears a smile so contagious you can't help but smile in return.  Poverty held my hand and asked to help me.  Oh the first world problems I deal with daily.  They seem trivial and futile up next the eyes of a child living in poverty.  Poverty has a face that looks similar to mine, but so does hope.

As a parent, I desire for my children to have the best.  What I should desire for them is not physical, tangible things.  My desire for my boys is they experience gratefulness in the midst of almost nothing, joy in the midst of pain, love in the midst of the unlovely.  I want for them to see that what matters most in life is beyond themselves.  It goes deeper than their wants.  I desire for them to learn the secret to living in every situation.

That secret is Christ.