a simple "thank you" would suffice

I have led a very easy life, to be perfectly honest with you. I'm not the one who's been through the fire and come out on the other side praising God. I'm not an example of how to plow through when the going gets rough. For me, "rough" has been reverse culture shock coming back from Thailand. Learning how to love my family. Trying to figure out used-car problems.

They're not exactly existential crisis moments.

My greatest dilemmas have been over what job to take and how to earn money for my travels. I have wonderful family members who never cease to take care of me and make me smile. I have devoted friends who stick around when I least expect them to stay (they never leave me alone, I'm telling ya -- haha). I have always had some manner of spending money, some means of transportation at the ready, always have had plenty of food and space in which to live.

I have an abundance. 

Instead of resting in this blessing and letting it fill me with thankfulness and trying to find the best ways to use this to bless others, I felt ashamed of it. I thought that my lack of dark experiences and troubling circumstances made me an incredibly shallow person.

But I realized that that just isn't true. Being surrounded by pleasant things does not make one joyful, just as being around unpleasant things does not make one bitter. Though both resulting conditions can easily be the case.

How we act in any circumstance declares who we are. The circumstance itself does not necessarily lend the label. 

Crazy, isn't it, how we label ourselves and others by what they have been through. Yes, those circumstances change us and in a way they make us who we are. But that isn't our identity.

"The clothes don't make the man." I'm sure you've heard it before. Who we are inside tends to show through in how we dress and what we say...not the other way around. Funny, isn't it, how what we believe has crazier consequences than we think it does..

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I SHALL NOT WANT."

Psalm 23:1

What a strange power there is in those last few words: I shall not want. This idea of God leading me and giving me literally everything I need to survive has far-reaching consequences. I shall not want for more food. I shall not want for a different car. I shall not want to be a different person with different circumstances. I shall not want beyond what I already possess.

Instead of constantly pursuing other things, I should be able to look around and go, "I have God." What or who can compare? I wonder if God just shakes His head at my flighty ways and endless desires. I sometimes think that He says, ever so gently (and rather ironically), "A simple 'thank You' would suffice, My daughter."