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As I was watching the fireworks while sitting on the deck of a friend’s house at Lake Madison this past week, I couldn’t stop thinking how incredibly fortunate many of us are. We live in a country that many of us reap the benefits without ever having to pay a price. We eat well, we drink well and we do it in good health and relative ease. As I sat on the expansive deck with the brilliant sunset and then the scintillating display of fireworks, I found myself getting choked up just thinking how wonderful it is to be an honored guest to loving hosts. Earlier in the day, when the temperatures were ungodly hot and the humidity was somewhere between steamy and sauna like, I sat in the air-conditioning listening to a teenager complain about how hard it is to wash the dishes that did not fit into the dishwasher and listen to an adult gripe about the turning radius of the riding lawnmower. And there I sat, in a well appointed home that I did not pay for, eating exceptional food that I did not prepare and drinking French wine in cut crystal stemware. How many of us appreciate the world around us without complaint? How many of us realize how extraordinary our situation is without finding fault? How many of us contemplate the rigors of the past where the majority didn’t have central air-conditioning, an automobile, or fresh strawberries except in season and when they picked the strawberries themselves? Let’s make a pact. Let’s promise to be more grateful and complain less. Let’s promise to contemplate how wonderful life is rather than focus on perceived lack. Let’s promise to speak words of affirmation and appreciation. Live Jesus, Martell
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