God blesses us in small ways. This afternoon, my neighbor and I cut apart a pear tree next to my house that blew down. I live in northeast Alabama. We had 30-40mph winds and some heavy rain. When I found out that the tree had blown down, my immediate reaction was to pity my own luck in having this chore I was heading for immediately after work.

As I began working away with my hand saw (I have no chainsaw, and know no one with a chainsaw either), I started deploring the task ahead of me. Then my father-in-law shows up with a brand new chainsaw he had just gotten to help me with my tree. His response was “I’d probably need it soon anyway.”

That is when it occurred to me just how self centered, and how selfish I was being. There are hundreds of thousands that don’t even have a house to come home to. There are people floating dead in the flooded streets of New Orleans and Mississippi. Yet here I am in my own pity party worried over spending three hours cutting up a blown down tree.

While so many suffer, I am ashamed of myself for the moment of selfishness, but find comfort in the fact that I have realized this, and found some compassion.

Please keep those in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in you prayers and in your thoughts as you conquer the “little” struggles of life.