Count Your Blessings

  • If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

    There would be:
    57 Asians
    21 Europeans
    14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
    8 Africans

    52 would be female
    48 would be male

    70 would be nonwhite
    30 would be white

    70 would be non-Christian
    30 would be Christian

    89 would be heterosexual
    11 would be homosexual

    6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.

    80 would live in substandard housing
    70 would be unable to read
    50 would suffer from malnutrition
    1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
    1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
    1 would own a computer

    When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

    The following is also something to ponder...

    If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

    If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation . you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

    If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

    If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than
    70% of this world.

    If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

    If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada.

    If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
  • Oy! A very timely reminder.
  • Thanks so much for this post! I think most people just don't stop and think about the plight of so many in this world. I don't think any of us should feel guilty for being so blessed at all. We just need to do what we can to make life better for someone else in some way. Thanks, ellis!
  • Thank you ellis! What an eye opener
  • Thanks Ellis!!
  • Yes, sometimes the freedoms that I enjoy versus others staggers me.
  • Thanks Ellis

    It's so easy to get caught up in my daily routine (aka daily drudge!!) that I forget the bigger picture.

    As Marianna said, we have tremendous freedoms.