Another memoir from S.E. Asia - and other thoughts

I went to bed feeling very thoughtful last night. I think lately I've been in a kind of rut. A "me, me, me" kind of rut. And a "buy, buy buy" kind of rut. It's been so evident in my life lately that the more things I have the more I want. It's like feeding a big black hole. Sometimes I just need to step back and regain perspective.

So, last night I was thinking about how I have more shoes than I can even fit in my closet, but I want more. There are so many people in this world who don't even own a pair of shoes.

"According to The State of the World’s Children as reported by Unicef, there are 143 million orphans around the world. Orphanages do not receive enough funding to support the children in their care. One of the greatest and most immediate needs is a pair of shoes. Many of the children receive one pair of shoes to last the entire year, and some don’t have shoes at all."
-taken from shoesfororphansouls.org

Then I was thinking about how I throw away so much food every week when so many people don't have food or clean water. And how I get to go to bed next to my wonderful, caring husband every night when there are so many people who don't have anybody and who are lonely. I complain about our apartment all the time - it's too small or it's too loud or there isn't enough privacy - when there are so many people who don't have anywhere to call home. And these things are just the beginning. I take so much for granted, and I rarely sit and think about people who are really in need, much less try to do anything about it.

When we lived in Thailand, we would go down to the "night bazaar" quite often. It was a really long street, lined with carts where Thai people would try to sell things to make a living. Many tourists would come to this area to eat, shop, get massages etc. One night when we were walking down the street, I saw a middle-aged woman sitting on the sidewalk, holding a very tiny baby. While we often passed homeless Thai people sitting around night bazaar, this woman caught my attention. So, I went and bought her some Thai food and gave it to her. I tried to talk to her with what little Thai I knew, and then I left. From then on, every time I would come to night bazaar, I would buy her some food, kneel down and talk to her and the baby for a few minutes, then walk away.

It wasn't very long before this started to seem frustrating to me. I knew that it helped her in that moment for me to give her some food, but what about after that. What about the next morning? Or the nights that we didn't go to night bazaar? What about when we would leave Thailand for good and I would never bring her food again? I felt so helpless.

I never did figure out how to reconcile this problem in my head or heart. And I don't know how to reconcile the problems I was thinking through last night. I know that I can pray for these people, and I need to learn that that's the main thing that people need anyway. But do you ever feel that you could never really do enough to make a difference in someone's life? Much less in the lives of so many millions of people who are in need.

In writing this I'm thinking that maybe I'm giving myself too much credit. I could never do enough to make these people's lives great. And what is great anyway? What standard am I measuring life by? I mean, I met people in remote villages in Thailand whom I would label as having a poor life just because they didn't have kitchens and bathtubs and stoves and beds. But, I know that many of them were happy, and had a life that was full of the Lord. That's all they needed.

Like I said, I don't know how to reconcile these thoughts. But I do know that I need Christ's fellowship in my life so that I can have a chance of keeping a humble, Christ-centered perspective. Thoughts?