Thoughts on my charmed existence

I have, admittedly, a charmed existence. My two nearly perfect children are sleeping in their beds - they fell asleep quickly tonight. My best friend, and love of my life: my wife, is pursuing photography leads as I write; a business that has exploded recently, thereby exploding passion from within her heart. I married a hotty. I have a good job - while other guys in my company can't work because of the weather, I get to work. I work for a good man. We had 4 of our best friends over tonight to share life with: hopes, fears, pains, joys, success, failure. We have community. I have two sets of parents that love me, my family, the Lord. I have sisters that are living out their lives' dreams adventurously and I get to proudly bear witness. I have friends that care enough about me to buy me a plane ticket to go visit them. I have friends who will be published writers and artists someday. I have a friend that leads worship, and if he put himself out there, would be playing at the Passion worship conferences or recording CD's in two years - he's that anointed. I have a missionary friend who has given away "the easy life" to serve Christ - pouring her life into the lives of teenage girls who have been abandoned and are parentless. My friends and family are, in the words of Derek Zoolander: all really, really, really, ridiculously good looking. I am honored to be in their presence whenever God allows.

I own two cars and have no car payment. I'm listening to digital music through my television set as we speak - scrolling through any of 4000+ songs for my auditory pleasure, typing on my Apple laptop, on the internet while sitting on my posh couch. My heat is running on a cold night, keeping me warm. The roof over my head has kept the drizzle and snow off of my clothing. I haven't shivered at all today. I'm full from one of my favorite dinners: a pesto pasta dish with chicken (an Ashley specialty). The two large helpings I had tonight really hurt my stomach because I ate so much - now I know what it's like to suffer!! The water I drank tonight had lemon AND lime in it.

And here I sit, rich in the eyes of the world, basking in the glow of my earthly possessions' glory. I sit here, with everything I could have ever dreamed of having. I sit here, with all of it at my disposal, right now.

Across the city, a young mother has just been beat up by her husband. Many thousands of men and women are sleeping outside. . .and it's cold. Father's are leaving their kids, girls are having abortions, kids are hungry, drugs come easy. Cancer is ripping families apart. Elderly people die alone in nursing homes. Depression haunts thousands, despair hovers over so many households. Houses are being repossessed. People are unemployed. The public schools are among the worst in the nation (no joke). Poverty holds Kansas City's urban core in its icy, unending grip. Apathy grows, pornography sells, brokenness runs rampant. On the "other side of the tracks," wealth drives children toward rampant materialism. People leave the city for the safety of the suburbs. Churches are moving there too. The need for higher dollars keeps some parents living as workaholics.

I don't want to make bigger statement than necessary. I won't preach at you. But I'm definitely being tugged at toward things that matter. May God break my heart for the things that break His - more and more - in 2008.