A lot/Nothing to Complain About

Here at the Brown residence, Fall is turning into the time of year that is not only connected with cooler weather, changing leaves, pumkpins, and the advent of the holiday season, but also with unfortunate happenings around our house. Last fall our lawn mower's engine blew up (this may or may not have been caused by a gross miscalculation on the part of one who will remain unnamed concerning how to change the oil), our basement flooded, and we recieved an enormous "neighborhood" tax bill that the seller of our home had (conveniently) forgotten to mention to us when we asked about neighborhood fees.
In an effort to make more fun family memories (drying out our entire basement,sorting through wet boxes, and paying all kinds of money to get things fixed was a real blast), our house/belongings have once again revolted. For starters, the garbage disposal blew up over the weekend while I was trying to grind up a recipe gone horribly wrong. We are also currently in the process of drying out the basement guest room due what proved to be a perfect storm of problems; a mole that collapsed all the dirt around the window in the guest room, a small hole in the window from faulty construction (again, thank you kind seller of our home), torrential rain, and a long period of time between the carpet being soaked and me figuring out why the basement smelled like mildew. And to top it all off, our furnace (after making some very loud screeching noises when we first turned it on) has stopped working completely--just in time for the cold weather--and can't be fixed until Wednesday. Aaah...Fall. What a wonderful season!
I was feeling a bit perturbed (and rightfully so?) at all these things gone awry. But then I got to thinking (thanks in part to my mom, who like most mothers, knows what you need to hear and not what you want to hear, as well as the book I just finished--"A Thousand Splendid Suns," which I highly recommed if you want to feel totally guilty about how good you have it). We have so much. And that is an understatement. Yes, our furnace is broken, but we have a gas fireplace that is keeping us warm and we have the money (or at least we think we do--we'll see when we get the bill) to get it fixed. Unlike the majority of the world, we go to bed every night with full stomachs and no fear of not being able to feed our children or being caught up in a violent civil war, or dying from common illnesses because we don't have access to the right medicine. We have clean water to drink and plenty of clothes to wear. We have access to doctors and schools. We have freedom to speak what we want and to worship how and where we want and to pursue our goals. We have a steady income to buy what we need, and much of what we want (and to pay for all the things that are breaking). By the standards of most of the world, we are rich, and our problems are small and insignificant.
And so instead of complaining (as I was getting all warmed up to do), tonight I find myself thanking God for all that we have, and praying that He will help us to live in such a way that we don't hoard these gifts, but instead use them to be His hands to the world around us; praying that we won't shut ourselves up in the (quite chilly) walls of our home and turn a deaf ear to the cries of the those in need down the street, in our state, in our country, and even around the world; praying that our view of the world will not be limited to just our needs, our problems, and our wants, but will be expanded to see the needs of those who do not live in the same security to which we have grown so accustomed...and praying that when everything is fixed I won't forget to live so that I constantly remember all of these prayers.