What matters most

So here I am on a Saturday night, browsing the property listings as I glumly look around our shabby home with its half finished bathroom, worn through carpet and mustard kitchen, grizzling that we just can't keep up with the joneses. I do that sometimes - hazards of being part of a "Havelock North" middle/upper class community when we don't fit that mould at all. I can often feel out of place.
But anyway, here I am looking at property but also coming to the conclusion that actually,I like that I don't have to work full time...I like that our neighbours are lovely...I like that Marty comes home for lunch and is home by 5:10pm...I like that we only need one car...I like that we have a mortgage we can manage. I am content for today. My mind has won this battle.

....and then I flick over to the paper, and read of 28 dead people thanks to a shooting rampage in another school. Two weeks out from Christmas, all those 20 children most likely had presents awaiting them, their parents excited about serif their darlings unwrap them. Those children had their life snatched from them, and their families lives were changes forever.

It's like a slap in the face. Who cares that my carpet sucks, my windows are flaking almost beyond hope, that my kitchen sucks. What do these things really mean anyway? I live without the nice things because I have 3 young precious lives that need their mummy.... I live in this cheap house because I choose to give my time to my family and to my church, God's family. I have everything I need. i have amazing family and friends. i have a God who knows my name. i have a loving husband. I have 3 healthy Children.

.....Those poor, poor families would give up everything for one more day with their babies.

May I remember that my riches are in heaven and in my loved ones, in my attitude and in my thoughts. God, help me to be grateful every moment for that which I have been blessed with, and not to covet what is not for me.