This morning I read some powerful words. “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest- and poverty will come on you like bandit and scarcity like an armed man.”

I think about poverty a lot. I live not too far from some pretty physically impoverished areas. In Africa, while walking around and visiting new communities I sometimes feel like I’m drawing lines between the poor, the really poor, and the really really poor.  It is the poorest of the poor that I really want to help, my heart goes out to them and I want to see them out of the desperate grasp of poverty. But who am I to judge the rich or the poor, after all, we all are rich and we are all poor in many ways? In Africa, I see the poverty of our nation more clearly. From a distance I see us clinging to our material possessions, hoarding our blessings, paving our concrete roadways to our goals and dreams lacking notice of those around us and concentrated on building our own white picket fences.  Mother Teresa said, “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”  It is not only physical poverty that we suffer from here in America, but I think Mother Teresa’s statement is truer than ever. An abundance of people suffer from a loveless life, depression, loneliness and emptiness that she calls the greatest poverty of all.  But who am I to judge one poverty worse than another?

The quote above is speaking about laziness.  Hard work and motivation will spare a girl like me from poverty and scarcity. Though I consider myself a pretty hard working individual, it’s good to have a little reminder every once in a while.  Today, I will be grateful for all the poverties I don’t have. I will not fold my hands in laziness, but use them to work hard at what lies before me. I feel grateful for that opportunity today.