Content & Images © 2008-2014 - Rachel Miller, Ink Road Originals LLC, All Rights Reserved

Monday, April 15, 2013

Blessed to Be "Cursed"

Ah, it's tax day again in the United States, and a lot of people are feeling down about it today.  I will admit, I was not too happy to discover that, even though my small "side income" business made less than poverty wages last year, I still owed a big chunk of it to the government.

It doesn't seem fair, and I could complain, but today, I'm choosing to be positive.  After all, I could have made no money at all.  The fact that I had taxes to pay on income was a privilege, really, compared to much of the rest of the world, including many neighboring countries in the Northern and Western hemispheres. I got to pay taxes out of money I made, doing work I love.  I could complain, but I'm rich.  I am blessed.  There are many others in this world who can only dream of such things.

When my city shut off the water supply for maintenance this morning--during my shower--I thought about calling it insult added to injury, but I think I'd better laugh it off instead. No real harm was done, and the water was turned back on less than an hour later. It makes me think of my parents' experiences on a missions trip to Jamaica years ago.  They learned first-hand why people keep buckets of water in their showers there. The public water only runs for about one predawn hour every day, and when it's gone, your shower better be over!  Compared to that daily hardship, I am blessed.  Some people never even see running water in their lifetimes!

The fact of the matter is that life can be stressful, maddening, and distastefully ill-timed, but it is still good.  In fact, even at its worst, I realize that most of my readers, like me, have it better than their peers.  Before you or I start talking like today is cursed, we should remember how much we've been blessed--and be thankful.  We should remember what the Psalmist wrote:
"This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118: 24 ESV)
Let's do that.  Let's rejoice.  Let's give thanks to God for all of His many blessings.  Let's stop to remember them!  What's good about tax day?  To start with, everything...

1 comments:

Shannon said...

My phone calendar had an automatic reminder set for Tax Day. Rather than letting that reminder affect my mood all day, I typed in another to show up by its side: "God is my provider!!!" :)

ShareThis

LinkWithin