A bitter pill to swallow…

When I got up today, I planned to check my status and see how many subscribers I had and figure up how much I was to give to Feed My Starving Children, as was my pledge.

I saw that there were 25 subscribers, so that adds up to $8.50. I thought I might as well round it up to $10 and considering our current financial state, I thought that was pretty good.

Then I saw the following article (I’ve shortened it, but you’ll get the gist):

Money might not buy love, but it will buy a six-figure Mercedes for the teenaged son of a hip-hop superstar.

Thanks to his dad, hip-hop mogul and businessman Sean “Diddy” Combs, now Justin Dior Combs is the proud owner of a $360,000 luxury sedan.

His dad didn’t just throw Justin a huge, star-studded birthday party at the Manhattan club M2 Ultralounge on Saturday night. He also presented the youngster with a 2010 Maybach, wrapped in a red bow and parked outside the club.

In addition to the wheels, Diddy gave his son a check for $10,000, which Justin immediately donated to Wyclef Jean’s charity Yele Haiti. And since the teenager doesn’t yet drive or have a license, Diddy provided him with a uniformed driver to escort the teen and his friends around Manhattan.

I was OUTRAGED! To spend that kind of money on a car it totally incomprehensible to me. And for a child who cannot even drive?? Even the check for $10,000, that Diddy handed his son, so his son could hand it to charity…why not do it the other way around?? Send the $360,000 to Haiti and buy your son a $10,000 car! It made no sense to me at all…in fact, I was just plain mad when I read it.

And then…it hit me. Aren’t I doing the same thing? Could you imagine a person in Haiti, taking the $10 I had for them and watching me spend more than ten times that amount each week at the grocery store? This is so wrong.

I read today that is every Christian would tithe ten percent, we could alleviate poverty in the world. Can you imagine…the answer is right there! There are so many things that we can’t control that way…wars, disease, environment…but poverty is within our ability to change.

God, forgive me for forgetting whose money it is to begin with. That everything I have, I have because of you. I’m ashamed that I complain about little, petty things when there are those in the world who truly know the meaning of suffering. Show me how to change myself so that I can be the change I want to see in others.

But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us —see that you also excel in this grace of giving.      ~2 Corinthians 8:7

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.  ~Winston Churchill

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.  ~Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy