Cultural Differences

When I think of the phrase cultural  differences, things like how we view marriage or our different foods or languages or our view on community come to mind.  Today as I was putting lunch away, though, our differences struck me a little differently.

My arms were, once again, too full as I tried to make as few trips as possible (any other moms can relate?), and a big, glass container of rice slipped out of my hands onto the floor.  Now, as you can imagine, this was a huge mess that I was really not in the mood for.  I was trying to get the kids out to the pool (thank you, Lord, for 2 weeks at Mom and Dad's while they're on vacation!) and join them before we were off to a birthday party.  But as I got the vacuum out and started cleaning up the rice and shattered glass spread around the one side of the kitchen, God allowed a different train of thought to come into my mind.

I started thinking about how it was annoying, yes, that I lost a big container.  It was also annoying that the rice we were going to use for curry tonight or the next day, was now ruined by little pieces of glass mixed in.  But what about in my beloved Africa?  What if a big container was ruined and the rice along with it?  Would the children eat for the day?  Would they go to their cupboards (would they even have cupboards?!?) and go choose from 5 others, or would they have to work to save up enough money to buy another one...if they even could?

This is the reality for millions of people in other parts of the world.  Food for thought today...