potting and things

Yesterday I went to visit Sylvia in her home after school. Sylvia is one of our sponsored girls and most excitingly, a member of our newest programs here at Children of Grace called Girls Can. Through this new program, 15 of the brightest, most promising COG girls are getting the opportunity to attend Riverside Academy--a very prestigious private school in Jinja. 

Within the past week a couple COG staff members caught wind of Sylvia's present situation. Her father is gone (normal for Uganda) and her mother is the fish business on an island on Lake Victoria--the only job she can find. This leaves Sylvia and her five younger siblings at home alone four to five days out of the week. Here's what that means. The younger ones stay at home alone all day and then at 5:00 Sylvia comes home and switches gears from the role of student to mother. Keep in mind, she's only 12. During the evening she must cook, clean, put everyone to bed and then try to stay on top of her homework. 

This isn't to mention her living conditions. It's hard to tell from a picture, but she and her siblings all live in this one bedroom home--the size of my bathroom.There is one bed and then a small palate on the floor. Because of all the fish her mom brings in/out of the house, the stench is...rank. 

Why was I born with a different life than this? Why is my life not that hard? I could have easily been the daughter of a HIV positive fisher(wo)man or of a prostitute living on the streets of Atlanta. It's not like I've done anything to deserve the life that I've been given, where comfort abounds. I've been struggling with this question for a long time, but especially over the past 24 hours. 

This morning, I was crying out to God to give me some kind of peace or understanding. Then I found Romans 9 where Paul talks about God as a potter.

Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right? 

What good is it for the pot to ask why it was created to hold flowers verses ashes--or vice versa. Maybe it would serve me better to stop trying to figure out why I'm not another kind of pot. What good does it do to wish I was born into a harder life?

It's probably a better use of my time to reflect upon who I am--what kind of pot I am--and work with humble dignity to hold my ashes (or flowers or water or crayons or something) as beautifully as I can. Then to heed to the one command I've been given which is to love--in Uganda or America or wherever I find myself.