“My best gift is my sister, Mama.”
My 5-year old chimed in, “For my birthday coming up, I want my family & God for my gift. That will be my BEST present ever.”
I held back tears. Just days ago, Cliff and I received a message berating us about when we’d “snap out of it” and start thinking about our children’s future.
That’s when it hit me—
For all the lack, shortage and brokenness that life in a small town in Tanzania might offer, I’m learning— that gratitude in hard places transforms things, transforms us. It changes our lens, our hearts, to see more beauty in the ordinary, more richness in what the world calls “lack.”
Where I once felt pressured to sign my children up for endless enrichment classes to “enrich their lives” to be a “good parent,” I now give thanks for a safe passage to school over potholes on dirt roads, for books brought in by rare visitors, for field trips to farms.
Amidst bottles intentionally shattered at our gate, rocks thrown on our roofs, I asked my kids lately, “Do you feel safe?”
“Yes,” they said. One continued, “We’re in a bubble of God’s protection. No need to fear.”
While others and I, too, keep seeing what has been lost in our decision to live here, I’m learning to see what God has added to us, too— gratitude for the small, amidst the hard; gratitude for presence, amidst the lack; gratitude for things that go right, amidst life’s disappointments.
When I asked my 8-year old what she wanted to be when she grew up, she chirped, “To come back here to Africa, and teach at my school.”
Perhaps “a good life” for our children isn’t just about academic excellence, but about providing perspective. Perhaps true blessing isn’t about counting our riches—but about making every moment a rich one.
Perhaps— more than wealth and abundance, more than comfort and choices, the deeper, greater gift to our kids is the gift of our presence, of simplicity, of gratitude and of giving back.
When I “snap out of it,” I hope to give my children a big hug and say, “You are my best gift, and the best gifts I could give to the world.”🎁
