Toilet Paper Gratitude

I've traveled to places where there were stores, but no food on the shelves.

I've been honored to eat unwashed strawberries with dirt visible on them - it was the best that that family had to offer a guest.  I ate them with joy, even though I knew my system would deal with parasites for weeks after returning home.  

I've watched flies enjoy the food before we did at a picnic with abandoned children.  The food favorite was bread with meat grease spread on it.  Not a ice chest in sight.  

As we start the month of November - a month given to gratefulness - I have a vivid picture of the first time we went to Romania.  Things changed as the years went by, but the FIRST time we went - the toilet paper was so rough it had splinters of wood in it.  It was (dab don't rub) rough....and that was in the hotel we stayed at for awhile!  I took home a roll of that toilet paper to help my perspective stay in check.  

I'm a Costco toilet paper purchaser.  (I don't like to run out.)  Even at Costco, I stand and compare - deciding between namebrand and Kirkland - softer or larger roll.  Really?   

I have a challenge for you.  Will you deny yourself something - every day of November?  Not to lose weight and look better.  Simply to say "no" to your flesh and "yes" to gratefulness.  I am aware that it is a weird request - but as I write this, I really sense that the Holy Spirit will reveal to you what those 'deny yourself' moments will look like.  

Matt. 16:24 - Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me."

"When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. 

 A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude."

~Elie Wiesel