How much life has changed for me in the last 2 months…
2 months ago sitting in a coffee shop in a clean, glitzy mall would have been normal. Today, its not normal for me at all, but here I am just the same. I'm sitting in a coffee shop, listening to the typical jazzy American coffee shop music you would expect, eating a blueberry and cream cookie (some habits are harder than others to break!) and watching floods of people in the pursuit of things.
I thought about the destitution and poverty I had seen for the last 2 months in India an Nepal. About the masses of people who live off less than what one clothing item in this place would cost. About how they didn't have anything new and shiny in their humble homes – nothing store bought. I thought about Samuels mom making plaster out of dirt and water to repair a wall in their house and the smile she had on her face while doing it. I thought about the joy most all of them, I had met, had even though they didn't have these "nice' things, even thought they couldn't afford anything in this mall.
I thought about my own life in America. About how much time I had spent at a mall just like this one buying things that I thought were important or that would satisfy-only to grow tired of them in a matter of weeks or months. Styles change. Fads fade. Stuff gets old and wears out.
Then, those worlds collided.
As I walked past the stores I thought…
"That dress is so cute!"….. What about all the children I saw with only old, dirty clothes to wear?
"Oh my goodness, I want those shoes"….. What about all the people I saw walking through the dirt and mud barefoot?
"My computer is about to die, I just want to throw it away and buy a new one" …. What about the fact that the money it would cost me for the new macbook air that I wanted would be almost 2 years salary for the 40% of the world that lives on less than $2 dollars a day.
I didn't reach a conclusion today. I don't know what it looks like. I don't have an answer for what I experienced today sitting in that mall. I don't think me not buying that dres,s or those shoes, or that computer will solve the problem of poverty in the world. It won't. But the knowledge of its existence, and living in places where I can't pretend like it doesn't exist causes me to look at things differently. I'm thankful for my experiences and I'm trusting the Lord to show me what it looks like for me to live in light of these truths. To live out of a place of love and not legality.
