We Think You Are Rich

"Miss Katrina, we think you are rich," the little girl said, following me into my tiled kitchen.  "Are you?"

"No," I said instinctively. 

But confusion fogged my mind as I walked back out to the art room with her, where she and her sisters were painting and coloring on the floor.
The carpet was spread with pages of my old Wall Street Journals to catch stray globs. 
They asked me how I had a whole house to myself.
I made a reply about my church owning it first, which sort of meant nothing.

How easy it is to forget that rich is a subjective term! 

When I'm at the hospital, and I tell people I live on Brady Street, I don't feel rich.
When I'm on Brady Street, and tell people I work at the hospital, I do feel rich. 

Rich is a conundrum, like safe or cold or big.  
You can only make sense of these adjectives if there is an accepted standard of normal.
So who decides what is normal?
Brady Street?
Bremen?
Beverly Hills?
In my world, the accepted standard of normal changes with a 1/2 mile drive to work, or a 1/2 hour drive to church.
Then I come home, and I'm rich again. 

Which world is right? 
Who wrote these rules?  

And then I remember the words I read this morning. 

"Whoever would save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

That's what it means to be rich: to understand this impossible truth. 
You are rich if you tell God you will trust him when your life makes no sense.
You are rich if you do something you know is right, when you long to do something easier.
You are rich if you can sit on your porch in a torn chair and look up at the moon and be at peace.
You are rich if your heart spills over with joy that doesn't evaporate.
You are rich if you know you are right where God wants you to be.
You are rich if you have the strength to keep praying when you know God hasn't answered you yet.
You are rich when you realize that every possession, talent, or hour in your life is owned by God and could be reclaimed at any moment. 
You are rich if God gives you chances to share those hours, possessions, and talents.

This is the only rule that matters.
Those who can learn it can live it, I think, in any world.

"Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!" Romans 11:33

God, flood us!