The Pencil

It never ceases to amaze me how God can use the smallest thing to make a big impact in your life. While I was in Ethiopia I experienced many thing that changed me. But one small gesture from a young girl made the biggest impact on me.
One day while we were at the school we were handing out pencils to all the kids. We had the "cool" ones with sparkles, flowers, cars and basketballs. I was excited to hand them out because many of the children who had no sponsors had to borrow from the other children.
We had just handed out the last one when this little girl about 8 years old walks up to me and hands me back the pencil I had given her. At first I thought maybe it wasn't sharpened or the eraser was gone. It took a little bit but I finally understood that she was telling me she had a pencil and she shouldn't take the new one. She proceeded to show me her stubby little pencil. I stood there for a minute and then God spoke to my heart and said "she is trying to tell you that her need is met." This little girl didn't need anything more or anything less. At that moment something inside of me changed. I did convince this sweet girl that this was a gift and I wanted her to have it. I handed it to her, she smiled and walked back to her desk.
You know the saying "my life flashed before my eyes?" Well my did. It wasn't a "oh my I am getting ready to die" event. This was more of remembering how many times I have complained, moan and groaned and yes have gotten upset when I thought I needed more or wanted to do this or that and couldn't for whatever reason.
When we had first drove up to the school it made me sad. The fence and gate were pink and green and made of sheet metal. Once I got inside there was no toys or playground equipment. No pane on the windows. The desk were old and the classrooms had only a blackboard. There were no bright alphabet letters or pictures of the sun on the wall. It was just plain. Yet all these kids had greeted me with smiles and hugs and kisses. I thought to myself how can they be so happy? The answer is that they don't look at what they don't have they look at what they do have.
What if we all thought that way. I think the word is "Grateful. We always want more, bigger, better. We are always in a hurry and busy. But I bet if most of us took the time to look at what we do have instead of what we don't have, we would realize that we are doing just fine.