“Dear God, why me?”
I admit I’ve prayed that prayer many times in my life: on my knees, sobbing, as a 7-year-old while my father’s body lay in the next room; quietly in my new room at the orphanage where the remainder of my childhood would be spent; silently at the back of a church gathering as I struggled through the end of a career.
And I prayed it again last week, as I stood in the middle of a slum outside of Recife, Brazil.
I watched as two young boys skipped across the tremendous pile of garbage that surrounds their shanty home. I marveled as they meandered through unmentionable filth and stench. I marveled because they were smiling the whole time.
“Dear God, why me?” I whispered.
This time, my question came from a different perspective. This time it wasn’t, “Why have You allowed this tragedy to fall on me?” But rather, “Why have You allowed such blessing to fall upon me?”
“Why was I born in a country that afforded me many more opportunities than this family? Why do I get to sleep in a warm bed at night while they sleep on the cold, hard ground of their tin shack?”
“Why do I get to step out onto my lawn without fear of rusted hypodermic needles, shards of glass, and broken tin cans among other filth?”
“Why me, God? Why did You give me so much and them so little?”
Of course I know the answer. I know that I have been blessed for a reason: to be a blessing.
Yes, that may sound trite but it’s true. God entrusted me with so much so that I can help make sure no family lives in such filth. No human being should.
Question is: Have I fulfilled that calling?
If you’re reading this blog post, chances are you are one of the blessed. So I would encourage you to ask the question as well. How much could we all accomplish, if the Church in our country (and other developed countries) collectively asked the same question:
“Dear God, why me?”