Today, I had the privilege of speaking at our local MOPS meeting. A delightful bunch of young women, good strong coffee, plenty of kid-friendly activities, and candor made the morning quite refreshing.
After the official "talk," I joined a group of women and listened as they shared conversation. Somewhere in the midst of it, we were commiserating the trials of preschoolers and teething babies and...the list went on and on...until the funniest gal in the bunch caught sight of another mother walking by our table. With twin babies, one on each hip.
"We don't have any problems over here," she quipped loudly. "No complaining coming from this table. No sirree."
Which had us all laughing.
It reminded me of my interaction this weekend with a wonderful couple, Andrew and Stephanie, who are headed to Kenya to spend the rest of their lives serving in the slums. Suddenly, those rushed (but hot) showers in the morning don't seem so terrible. Nor does the state of my ten-year old mini-van.
In the words of Jon Acuff, "[E]ven if your missionary friend is quiet and never judgmental, I have to suspect that when you say, 'My hot water heater broke and I had to take a cold shower this morning,' he's secretly thinking, 'Water? I remember water. It's that wet stuff that comes out of pipes sometimes, right? I saw a picture of it in the book we have in the desert schoolhouse I teach in, and it reminded me that I had not yet taken a shower this month. But perhaps I will walk into the city next week and see if one of our host families will empty a plastic bottle of gray-colored water on my head. That would be nice, I think.'"
- Excerpt from Stuff Christians Like by Jonathan Acuff, page 31, copyright 2010 by Zondervan.
Can you really complain about mothering in front of a mother of twins (and a toddler)? Can you really whine about the trials of being a middle-class American in front of missionaries?
Resting in a No-Complaining Zone Tonight,
Karen
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