The Rich and The Poor

Any decent writer knows that every article needs to have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

I'm going for two out of three with this one. It's regarding an issue I've been wrestling with, and still don't have an answer to, in spite of too many sleepless nights (thanks, insomnia), and reading too many people's thoughts and opinions.

Here's the dilemma: How much money can we spend on ourselves before it becomes self-indulgent? Where is that line between reaping the rewards of our hard work, and becoming selfish with our resources?

I don't have the answer. I don't think I'm even close to an answer. But I sure do have a lot of questions.

My husband and I just sold our really pretty townhome, and bought a bigger house on a pretty lot that has the additional bedroom we need for our adoption. It's a really, really nice house. We didn't go over budget with the house. It has a nice big kitchen, a nice yard for Reagan to play in, and a large (I mean, really large) master bedroom, with a big bathroom. The neighborhood is pretty. Financially, it makes sense for us, and is a good investment for our money.

We had a difficult 2013. I'm not gonna lie. We had to reprioritize a lot. But, now that we are heading in the right direction again, I look forward to nice dinners out, maybe a few day trips with Reagan, and, fingers crossed, a trip to Destin this fall. (Please, God, please ....)

Or do I? I've seen poverty. I've seen a lot of poverty. I've seen entire families living in a dump, with children who will never, ever smell fresh air, or drink clean water. I've seen generations living under a blue tarp, with one stick holding it up. I've seen children begging for food, their fragile skeletons proving they probably hadn't eaten in a long time. I've seen that desperate look in a mother's eyes, when she knows her babies will soon starve to death.

I have friends -- smart, good, hard-working friends -- who lost their house in the turbulent economy. I have more friends than I would like to count, who, despite their best intentions, are living paycheck to paycheck. Either they became unemployed and had to take a big pay cut in their new position, or they had excessive medical bills, or a thousand other ways people have found themselves struggling. Compared to a lot of our friends, we've made it through relatively unscathed.

But their struggles hit really close to home for me. I think of them often. I think of the tiny faces of poverty I've seen, and the anguish on a mother's face. I think of my friends, people I am personally very close with, who have to choose between paying the electric bill or the phone bill. I've seen it.

And I wonder, what is my responsibility in all of this?

I'm not talking about people who drove themselves into credit card debt because their desires exceeded their reality. I'm not talking about people who complain about not having enough money, while they eat out every week and go on expensive vacations. I'm not talking about people who go on a shopping spree while their mortgage is two months behind.

I'm talking about people who work really, really hard and still come up short. I'm talking about the children who can't afford to go to school in Kenya, the parents who can't afford to feed their children in Mumbai, or the 10-year-old orphan who works in the fields in Cambodia every day to feed his younger siblings.

I'm talking about the family who had to move into an apartment when the bank seized their house, the single mother who has to work two jobs to put food on the table, and the former CEO who now delivers pizza making $8 an hour because it's the only job he could find.

What is my responsibility in their struggle?

I have no idea.

The house we bought, to our friends, looks like everybody else's house. It doesn't have a big kidney-shaped swimming pool in the backyard. It doesn't sit on acres and acres of land. It doesn't have a marble staircase or a movie theater in the basement or anything luxurious (not that there's anything wrong with any of those things). It's your typical, average, middle American home.

But to someone living in poverty, in the United States or anywhere else in the world, it's lavish. I get that. It's much nicer than the projects. It's much nicer than the tiny shacks families live in. It's much, much nicer than the dump.

No one would argue, least of all me, that it's wrong to buy a nice house for your family to live in. Nor would anyone argue, I don't think, that it's wrong to drive a reliable car or buy your child a toy or go out to eat every now and then.

But where does it stop? To people in other parts of the world (and truthfully, in plenty of places in our own country), the idea of spending $100 for a nice dinner out is ludicrous. As is the idea that each child would have their own room, as big as some other people's houses. The average yearly income in India is $1500, and there's 42 countries that rank lower than them. The average yearly income is in Malawi (currently one of the poorest countries in the world) is around $270. What they make in a year, we could spend in a day. An hour, really. Our children have toys that cost more than that. We wear shoes that cost more than that. One nice dinner out costs more than that.

It's easy for me to say -- maybe too easy -- that that's them and this is us, and we're not meant to live like that, and we can't fix everyone and I should appreciate the blessings I have and on and on and on.

But here's where it is a slippery slope for me. I love that when Reagan asks me for an apple, or a banana, or yogurt, I can give it to him. I love when he is eating and he says, 'More, please,' I don't have to tell him there isn't more. I love that my child will never ever ever ever ever leave the dinner table hungry.

For some families, that's something they will never experience. All they know, and all they will ever know, is poverty.

No, I can't change the world. We could literally give every single penny we make this year to an impoverished country, and it wouldn't even put a  dent in their economic crisis.

But I can change one person's life. I can send money every month to feed a family. I can help a family here buy clothes for their children, buy their groceries, pay for a child's music lesson, or help in thousands of other ways.

Before I was a mother, these things didn't strike me quite as much. Sure, I felt compassion, and I gave when I could, sometimes even when it hurt, but it didn't affect me the way it does now. But now, I look at my little boy, and I imagine I am that mother whose child is starving, and someone telling me they are going to spend $2000 to go to the beach for a week, or $500 on new clothes, or $30,000 on a car because it has a sunroof and heated seats, instead of buying food for my child, and my head starts spinning.

In the Bible, Jesus told a man who wanted to know how to inherit eternal life to, "Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." (Mark 10:21). But, he also chastised the people who criticized the woman who poured out the expensive perfume on him, saying, "The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me." (Matthew 26:11) In other words, there's a time and a place for lavish, even sometimes impractical, gifts.

For our honeymoon, my husband and I went to an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica. For one week, we lived a life of complete indulgence. While we waited to book for our honeymoon until there was a big sale, what we spent on that one week is more than people in a lot of countries make in a year. We could have fed an entire village for the cost our honeymoon, or sponsored a child through an agency like Compassion International for a YEAR.

We could have paid several month's of our friends rent, or bought them groceries for several months. We could have done a lot with that money. But we went on our honeymoon, and I have never regretted that decision.

It's a sticky issue for me. I don't have an answer. I'm not even close to an answer. I have a lot of questions, and not any sort of resolution. But it's something I wrestle with, and I imagine I will continue to wrestle with for a long, long time.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts ....