Everytime I turn around, lately, I am being reminded of just how much I have.
This morning, I was responding to a client’s email. The email stated that she needed assistance because she had left an abusive marriage with her ten year old daughter. Her ex-husband was living on the west coast and refused to make child support payments, and was claiming disability for a self-inflicted injury. This was some tactic to avoid fulfilling his fatherly obligations. My client stated that she was looking for a third job, and that there was only $47 in her checking account. With Christmas just around the corner, her landlord advised her that she and her daughter would have to move out of her duplex, because he wanted to turn the property into a single-family dwelling.
My heart went out to her, and I started wondering if I could afford to send this woman, whom I have never met before, money to give her daughter a semi-decent Christmas.
One of the reasons that I am not a ‘Christmas Season’ person is because I can’t stand to see others sweep the problems of the world under the carpet. It makes me sad to know that folks are homeless in freezing temperatures and women are having to leave abusive relationships, not always knowing where they are going to go. I think that it’s especially around this time of year that I realize just how screwed up our world is. This is the time of year that I feel the most guilty for having so much… even though, in retrospect, what I have is far less than what others have. This is the time of year that people are supposed to embrace each other, be loving to others, share. Instead, we hear about a man being trampled to death in a Wal-Mart on Black Friday and of a woman who is eight months pregnant being beaten up over some toy. This makes me sick.
I have a roof over my head, with amazing people who care about me in a great big house. I have food on my table (whenever I get around to making something), I have friends who would never let me go without, I have a reliable vehicle, I have a family that loves me (although some of them have a very very hard time showing it). I have a job and health insurance. I can get in my car and go almost anywhere I want. I live in abundance.
