"THANK you Jesus"

"Thank you JESUS, Thank you Jesus, THANK you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus....

I was awestruck. The shabby room slowly quieted down as the large black woman stood, persperation running down her body in the hot un-airconditioned room, saying over and over Thank you Jesus. As she said it she looked around the room, finding eye contact with someone each time she spoke. It was a profoundly powerful moment.

As the room settled, she continued to say it until others took up the chant and soon this room full of well below poverty people joined her in Thanking Jesus.

None of these people have cars, none of these people have air conditioning in their homes, most of these people have no jobs, none of these people have iphones, or even cell phones, none of these people get their nails done or go to the beauty shop to have their hair done. They don't take their children out for ice cream cones or go to the movies. Their kids don't have bikes. They don't go to the beach on vacation. They are poor. Really poor.

Many of them are older women caring for one or more grandchildren because their own children are either drug addicted or incarcerated.

Many of them are teenage mothers, babies with babies.

Most of them have incomes below $1000 a month.

Still, with fervor and feeling, their prayer that rainy, hot, muggy morning was Thank you Jesus.
I was humbled. I was chastened, I was grateful to be there. Tears stood in my eyes.

God is honoring me with the opportunity to serve these people, they think I am helping them. Not true, they are helping me. Helping me to learn how to have gratitude no matter what the circumstances of my life are on any given day. That my gratitude to Jesus is not dependent on my circumstances, my gratitude to Jesus is for what HE did, for me.

It would appear that they have every right to complain and bemoan their situations. They live in abject poverty, in the middle of a rich city, state, country. They have so little , and yet, when they say, with so much depth and feeling, "Thank you Jesus", they know that they have so much. They have all any of us need. They have Jesus.

"Thank you Jesus"