Our Thanksgiving Story

For the past month at church, we've been focusing on the importance of giving to others. We read "The Hole in the Gospel" by Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision. He really changed my perspective on life. I highly recommend this book to anyone. It is a real eye opener! Anyways, this book states that as Christians, our faith is not just about going to church and being a good person, but it is also about giving to others. Many Americans (myself included) often take things for granted. We live in the "now" and it is all about what we want. We are often comparing what we have to what our friends have and complaining when we don't have everything we want. Most of us don't even stop to think of how blessed we are and how much we do have. Now I don't consider myself rich by any means but, little did I realize, I am rich in comparison to other people around the world. This quote from my pastor, Joe Wittwer, at Life Center Church might help put things into perspective:

"If you make $12,000 a year, you are in the top 13% of the world. If you make $25,000 a year, you are in the top 10% of the world. If you make $50,000 a year, you’re in the top 1%. We are rich. (By the way, to be in the bottom half of the world, you have to make less than $850 a year—that’s $70 a month or roughly $2 a day.) I know what you’re thinking: “I’m not rich.” I don’t think of myself as rich. Here’s why: We look at those who make more than us and that’s how we define rich. But the rest of the world looks at us, and we are how they define rich. Did you know that 93% of the world doesn’t even own a car? It makes your old clunker look pretty good! We are rich. If we don’t think we’re rich, we don’t see it as our responsibility to help the poor. We are rich."

If that doesn't make you thank God for everything you have, I don't know what will. Pastor Joe's message and Richard Stearn's book (and visit to our church) really touched our hearts. Since then, Bryon and I have had a strong desire to give. And boy have we gone on a giving rampage. Let me tell you...it is an addiction. Once you start giving, you don't want to stop. In fact, my entire family decided not to exchange Christmas gifts this year. Instead we are going to use the money to give to someone in need. One of the ways Bryon and I have decided to give is by sponsoring a child through World Vision. Our church is sponsoring over 1,500 children in a small village in Swaziland, Africa. Rylan helped us pick out a little boy who's three years old and he is very excited to draw pictures to send to him.

All of this brings me to our Thanksgiving story. We woke up Thanksgiving morning with a very sick son and a broken hot water tank which had leaked all over the storage room floor in our basement. Most businesses were closed for Thanksgiving, so we knew it would be a few days before we would be able to replace the tank and have water again. Obviously, not a good start to our Thanksgiving. No showers, no drinking water, and a not so cheerful son kind of put a damper on things. Normally, we probably would have started complaining about these unfortunate events, but that did not happen in the Talley household that morning. Quite the opposite happened actually. We were both thankful that 1) even without water, we still had more than we could ever ask for (a roof over our heads, plenty of food to eat, each other, etc.) and 2) our son would get better and back to normal in no time. When you think about the millions of people that go without clean water each day, and the millions of sick children whose parents can't afford to take them to a doctor, you begin counting each and every blessing. We truly are blessed!!!

Despite the circumstances, we ended up having a wonderful Thanksgiving at my parent's house. Here are a couple pictures of our day:We celebrated my Grandma's birthday on Thanksgiving while we were all together. Her birthday was just two days after Thanksgiving. Happy Birthday Grandma!

We were all so excited to see my brother Jeff. We miss him while he's away at college. We love you bro!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and took time to count your blessings!

If any of you are curious about ways you can give, here are a few websites I've recently learned about where you can find an opportunity to do so:

www.worldvision.org-sponsor a child
www.kiva.org-give a microloan
www.heifer.org-buy livestock for a family in need to help them become self-reliant and fight poverty