I have become somewhat addicted to the East Idaho News videos on YouTube where the news staff has taken on the responsibility for handing out thousands of dollars in gifts to deserving people in the Eastern Idaho area, complements of an anonymous Secret Santa who evidently lives somewhere in the area. This past Christmas, Secret Santa gave away one million dollars in cash and gifts, including cars, gift cards, cashier’s checks, and other gifts that truly make a difference and change the lives of these people and their families.
Nominations
for beneficiaries of these gifts come in from the public and are vetted by the
East Idaho News staff in consultation with the Secret Santa. They together make the decision what to
give. Then the news crew finds the
beneficiary and gives the gifts.
I
recently watched one video where a woman with five children had just buried her
husband following a protracted and painful illness. Secret Santa decided to pay for the funeral,
which had just occurred a few days before the visit by the news crew, give a
five thousand dollar cashier's check, and provide several thousand dollars in
gift cards. The woman was stunned and
truly grateful for the help.
There
are usually many comments below the video.
Below this particular video, the comment at the top of the page was
this: “I
feel dumb and ashamed when I complain about insignificant things. They just
suffered a terrible loss. May our heavenly father watch over and be with this
family. Give them comfort and love.”
I read the comments somewhat regularly. This comment stopped me in my tracks. “I feel dumb and ashamed when I complain
about insignificant things...” Many
people posted replies to this comment, agreeing with it and commenting
further. The comment really hit a nerve
for many.
What the woman who was the beneficiary of the Secret Santa gifts
went through definitely would NOT be insignificant. This woman cared for her ill husband for
about 10 years...nursed him through a kidney transplant...and cared for him
through his terminal cancer, all the while holding the family together and
caring for five kids. She had just finished
the funeral memorial and didn't have the funds to pay for the funeral...the
home agreed to put it on payments for her.
“I feel dumb and ashamed when I complain about insignificant things.”
When one looks at what this woman and family have gone through,
most everything that we encounter in our lives looks more and more like the
“insignificant things” that the woman referred to in her comment. I know we all have issues in life. I know things don’t always go our way, and
for some of us, things are tough right now.
However, many of us complain loud and long about the most trivial of
inconveniences in life. We think that
our few aches and pains, our temporary setbacks, our not being able to live our
lives exactly as we had planned, our inability to turn the world around and
make it all go our own self-centered way...we think we're the ones who are so
abused. We pout. We get angry.
We push others out of the way. We
have pity parties for ourselves. We
complain loudly about the unfairness of it all.
We are concerned only with
ourselves and how we can get things to go our way again.
“I feel dumb and ashamed when I complain about insignificant
things.”
I know it's tough to do, but I'm asking you right now to give an
account of yourself when some “insignificant thing” comes into your life. How do you react? What do you do? What do you say? What do you think? How do you act? What kind of a person do you become?
The next time you're tempted to throw a pity party for yourself,
throw everyone else under the bus in a fit of self=centeredness, or scream
about the unfairness of it all, STOP.
Think of this one sentence.
“I feel dumb and ashamed when I complain about insignificant things.”
Blessings.
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