Things here and things there. You hear the phrase, “You never know what you have until it is gone” and never think much of it. Well, one thing that being on the Race has helped me understand is that very simple phrase.
You never know what you have until it is gone.
You never know how good you have it until it is bad.
You never understand until you don’t know anymore.
Think of any substitution for this phrase and I think I can say I understand more than I use to. I was and am the biggest culprit to taking things for granted. I have something sitting right in front of me and I would rather have whatever is over there. I am here but I would rather be there. The list can go on.
I have learned this lesson over and over on the race. I hear the words echoing in my head each month.
Don’t wait for it to be gone.
Don’t take it for granted.
You would think that this would be an easy lesson to learn or a simple one to pick up. At first the things I missed from home ailed me during the month, or the culture differences sometimes got on my nerves, but here is where the lesson lies.
When I was unable to have water out of the tap for my time in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Tanzania, I started to realize just how much I took for granted how easy it is at home to turn on my kitchen sink and get a glass of water. I missed the simplicity of drinking water whenever I pleased, rather than walking the 25 minutes to town to pick up a water jug, or even packing/syphoning water for a 36 hour travel day because there would be no place to get water.
When I walked into multiple bathroom stalls over long travel days or visited local business bathrooms’ to find myself in quiet a predicament with no toilet paper, I realized just how many times I took for granted the simple availability of toilet paper in every bathroom in America-even in port-o-potties. I missed the unconscious dependence on the simple bathroom accessory that I, and many others, didn’t put one extra thought towards…until it was gone.
When I felt the rock in back that found its’ home nestled in the ground beneath my air mattress, I realized just how many times I laid in my bed at home and never once thought of a night I wouldn’t sleep on it, let alone days upon days upon months that I found my air mattress as my home away from home each night. I missed the easiness of a bed that only I had to sleep in, or the level ness of my mattress unworn from body after body burrowing into the homey imprint of the last guest.
When I felt the twang in my back that beckoned attention after long bus rides across Africa, I realized just how much I took for granted seats that reclined. When my knuckles cracked under the pressure of using a makeshift can open to cook a chili dinner for my house with 15 cans of beans, I realized just how much I took for granted the effortlessness of helping my mom cook the same meal at home but with a can opener.
These things name only a few. They are exactly what I said, the simple things. These are things that God has allowed me to see over the race to teach me a lesson not to take them for granted. I am blessed beyond measure by a God “who generously gives to all without finding fault” and am humbled at every opportunity to remember His love for me.
This message really hit home for me one day this month when we were talking to some friends at the dump. We were just chatting here and there about anything that came up. At one point, our friend stopped and said how much he missed his bed from back at home. You see he had left home to work at the dump to make money to send home, because he was so far from home in all of this he lived under a plastic tarp in the trash heaps. Talk about humbling. I miss my bed, but I have still been blessed every month with a place to lay my head that isn’t the hard cold floor, or outside in a trash heap under a tarp. How often do I, or we, look past the things that we have been given so generously by God?
Even our friend from the dump, God has not forgotten about him. He still lives every day for the Lord and doesn’t see his living arrangements as a moment that God has lapsed in memory and forgets to provide for his servant. No. Our friend sees this as another day to wake up in the dump and work to gain money to send to his family. He still wakes up on Sunday out of the trash heap and walks to church to sing the words, “Come, now is the time to worship!…Come, just as you are before your God, come!” He knows it, God tells him to come just as he is even if he slept the night before in a trash heap. God knows how he will bless our friend, just like he knows how he is blessing each one of us. Are we asking God for the eyes to see those blessings?
I am hoping that one thing will change from my experience on the race and that is that I will have these eyes from the Lord and that I see the present as simply that, a present. My hope and prayer, also, is for you. I pray that it doesn’t take you to lose things like these to finally realize the same lessons I did. I hope each one of you sees the blessings God has so lavished on each and every one of us and thanks Him daily for them.
Don’t wait for it to be gone.
Don’t take it for granted.
Seek the blessings.
Praise God.
