I was mowing recently and feeling pretty ungrateful. My hands had blisters because I had to keep gripping the mower and picking it up every so many steps to keep the long grass from clogging it up. It was hot. I didn’t feel good. The sticks the mower picked up kept shooting out the back and hitting my legs. My foot hurt. When I had to turn the mower off, I sometimes couldn’t get it started on the first pull. I was ticked.
As the sun beamed down and the degrees gradually grew on the thermostat, I had a flashback in my life. It was just under one year ago. I was riding in a truck down a busy and mass populated area. There were small patches of grass on the road medians. Every patch seemed to have an old woman sitting on it…mowing. The mowing was a bit different than what I did though. They didn’t have gasoline to fill up a machine to cut the grass. They sat all day with hand clippers slowing cutting away at each blade. The sun was hot, and they sat all day clipping. This is a day in the life of many Ethiopian women..the blessed ones that have a job and a source of income. They hand clip grass and are probably thankful to do it.
Was I thankful? I was thankful to be done when it was over. I wasn’t nearly as grateful as I should have been. I was blessed with the mower, the gasoline, clean water to drink when I was hot, clean clothes to wear when I showered after the sweaty work, and a yard of my own to mow on top of everything. My perspective changed after I realized my selfishness.
There are blessings in so many things we do and even complain about each day. Doing the laundry seems so time consuming at times. The picture above is of an Ethiopian woman, I met last year, doing her laundry by hand. We are so blessed and need to remember to give thanks and to pray for those who struggle and dream to have a sliver of what we complain about.
My prayer today is for those women clipping grass in a far away country today. May God bless them just as much as He has blessed me.
As the sun beamed down and the degrees gradually grew on the thermostat, I had a flashback in my life. It was just under one year ago. I was riding in a truck down a busy and mass populated area. There were small patches of grass on the road medians. Every patch seemed to have an old woman sitting on it…mowing. The mowing was a bit different than what I did though. They didn’t have gasoline to fill up a machine to cut the grass. They sat all day with hand clippers slowing cutting away at each blade. The sun was hot, and they sat all day clipping. This is a day in the life of many Ethiopian women..the blessed ones that have a job and a source of income. They hand clip grass and are probably thankful to do it.
Was I thankful? I was thankful to be done when it was over. I wasn’t nearly as grateful as I should have been. I was blessed with the mower, the gasoline, clean water to drink when I was hot, clean clothes to wear when I showered after the sweaty work, and a yard of my own to mow on top of everything. My perspective changed after I realized my selfishness.
There are blessings in so many things we do and even complain about each day. Doing the laundry seems so time consuming at times. The picture above is of an Ethiopian woman, I met last year, doing her laundry by hand. We are so blessed and need to remember to give thanks and to pray for those who struggle and dream to have a sliver of what we complain about.
My prayer today is for those women clipping grass in a far away country today. May God bless them just as much as He has blessed me.
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