on my current caseload of 10 clients, i have one welfare mother who bought her kids a 72" flat panel t.v. for Christmas, plus an x-box 360, plus an iPad, plus a bunch of other stuff.
i have 6 kids who qualify for free school breakfasts and all 6 of them eat breakfast at home before they go to school and eat breakfast.
i have 3 who finagled the system so that they received Christmas charity from more than one source. one of those 3 is getting Christmas help from five different agencies.
all of this should bother you and me and all of it probably does.
however.
this year, i have decided to look in the mirror. i have decided to see if there is a plank in my eye. guess what? there is.
no, there's no plank of ripping people off in my eye. i don't do that. honest, i don't.
but there is a plank - a pretty gigantic one, at that - of thinking i am superior to people who rip people off. and of the two sins - ripping people off or thinking that i am superior because i don't rip people off - well....... i don't think there's any difference. i think they're the same sin - selfishness.
selfishness and pride pretty much go hand-in-hand and while one may take the more blatant form of ripping off the system, the other is just as destructive, if less obvious. mattera fact......my sin might actually be worse, because at least my welfare moms are "out there" with it. whereas i, in my smugness, keep it all silent and to myself.
that is,
until now.
