Palace Life

Do you consider your home a palace? I mean really, a home for royalty. How do you see your home? Your bed, your kitchen, your yard? There are millions, probably billions of people that, if given just a glimpse of your life would think you were royalty living in a posh palace. No matter what your home looks like. If you are able to read this, meaning you've had some education, you have power wherever you're at, and you have internet access which most of us pay for, then you are better off than millions of people. And to them, you live like royalty.

I caught a few minutes of a film last week during a 2am feeding that has been resonating in my head ever since. I don't know what the movie was and the part I saw was actually very disturbing. However, when I went back to bed I had a new perspective on life that is still changing how I look at my every day surroundings. The movie depicted the life of a single mother and her three young children as refugees in Africa. What they owned they carried, where they slept was wherever they stopped, what they drank or ate was always uncertain and their safety was always under attack. This was their reality. For that mother, her hope was to make it through another day without harm to her or her children. Comfort wasn't even in her vocabulary. So as I went back to bed and put Ashely safely in her bassinet I though of her. I thought of what she'd think of my home, my bedroom with my comfy bed and the bassinet where my daughter sleeps peacefully. Would she be amazed that ONE FAMILY lives in this home even though we talk of wanting more space? Would she see my home and our furnishing as lavish even though I see them as comfortable and common? It's not wrong for me to live here and have these things, but it was during that 2am feeding that I gained a whole new appreciation for and perspective of the many blessings I have.

There are billions of people around the world that don't even know we exist. They may not even know the earth is round or that there are billions of other people here. In their reality, in their world, someone as myself would be looked on as royalty with how I live. This huge structure that I didn't even build, my family well fed, clean and with too many clothes for their own good; just the fact that we have need for (and use!) closets and pantries, it's just a fairy tale or a dream to so many.  I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live in the White House or one of those crazy multi-million-dollar mansions you see on TV, and it is with that same wonderment I realize millions if not billions of people wonder what it's like to live in MY house, this palace of sorts. Welcome to palace life.