PERSPECTIVE
One day the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.
On the return from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”
“It was great Dad.”
“Did you see how poor people live?”, the father asked.
“Oh yeah,”, said the son.
“So tell me, what did you learn from the trip”, asked the father.
The son answered, “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.”
“We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.”
“Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.”
“We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.”
“We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.”
“We buy our food, but they grow theirs.”
“We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.”
The boy’s father was speechless.
Then his son added, “Thanks Dad, for showing me how poor we are.”
I snipped this story out of our local agricultural paper a few years ago. The paper is now yellowed but I continue to keep it hanging on the bulletin board in our kitchen. It serves as a reminder to George and I that when times are hard and stressful that we are very rich indeed in the things that are important in life. It is important to always count the blessings and not worry about the things we don’t have.