Reformatting Vocabulary

​Scout sniffed her breakfast and looked at me as if to say, “Is there anything else?”  She gets dry kibble with a little scoop of meaty, canned dog food stirred in.  The store was out of our regular brand of canned so I got a different one, which she LOVES!!!!  But that’s run out, so this morning we are back to the old one, thus the sniffing and those sad, brown, puppy eyes.  But I held my ground, and she finally gave in and ate it, knowing if she delays too long Rosie will eat both bowls and she’ll be hungry until morning.
 
The struggle is real, as they say.  The struggle of a life so privileged that preference and necessity seem synonymous.  I’ve always known I was privileged.  My parents made sure of it from the beginning.  I knew that certain weeks we didn’t buy things, because we have house payment this week, and we were very lucky to have our own house.  I knew not every little girl got new clothes or school supplies in August, that some kids didn’t even have a school.

Scout making her sweetest
eyes in hopes of sharing my scrambled eggs.  Nada, sweetheart.  No way.

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Not once did my parents say we were privileged but somewhere in my growing up, blessed dropped into my vocabulary.  I didn’t notice when or where, but I expect it was at church.  The same church who by intention taught me Jesus loves me without end accidently left me thinking all this privilege also came from Him.  Unknowing what-we-thought-was-true-but-isn’t may be the most tedious spiritual discipline of all.  Weeding blessing from thought and speech where it does not belong never ends.  The tally of advantages gained simply by being white is startling.  Add educated, affluent and American – a person could count her many advantages all day long.

​What then counts as a blessing, if not the tastier canned dog food or my healthy family and warm house?  Not to put too fine a point on it, faith.  Faith in the Christ event.  Faith in Christ’s own self – who came and lived and died and lived again for us, breaking the threat of death over our daily existence – frees us to life without fear.  We are free.  Rich or poor, we are free.  Sick or well, we are free.  The threats of this world can do no more than kill the body, because in life or in death we belong to the Lord.  Whoever we are.  Wherever we come from.
 
I wish I’d figured it out sooner, but I’m glad I lived long enough to know the difference between privilege and blessing.  And while I’ve a long way to go in reformatting my thoughts and speech, I’m glad to be about this project with the likes of you.  Here’s a picture of Scout on her best behavior with her sweetest puppy eyes hoping for a bite of my scrambled eggs.  She didn’t get any.