A First-World Problem

Jacob and I recently went on a vacation to Hilton Head Island, SC for our 3 year anniversary.  And, we had an incredible time.  But, on our last day (the day we were going home)...Jacob discovered that we had a big problem on our hands.  He said, "Candice, where is your iPod?"  And so I started digging through all of our stuff desperately wanting to find it even though I knew that I hadn't packed it up.
   
We backtracked our previous night and had it down to these facts:

• I had it at Sweet Frog the night before.
• I had it when we got back to the hotel.
• I tried taking a picture of Jacob with the bikes but it was too dark.
• We went by the hotel front desk to get more shampoo and conditioner.
• We went up to our room.

I am 99.9% sure that I left my iPod at the front desk while we were waiting on our haircare supplies!  So I felt confident that the front desk had safely stashed my iPod for when I came to retrieve it.  Well, that was wishful thinking.  I'm not exactly sure what happened to it or where it went, but it was gone.... along with most of my pictures/videos from our favorite trip (well, not including our honeymoon)!  

I. was. crushed.  At any given moment during our 7 hour trip home, I would begin quietly crying again praying that the iPod would turn up.  Even though, deep down, I knew it was gone.  It was not until I made the comment, "This day couldn't get any worse" that my sweet, patient husband kindly corrected me.  "Candice, there are so many other things that could make this day worse".  And I knew he was right.  So, my attitude began to change and God began to work on my heart.  Jacob dozed off shortly thereafter, so I drove in silence and began counting all the many blessings that God has given us.  I finally came to the conclusion that an iPod really is nothing in the grand scheme of life.  Of course, I was sad but instead I started problem solving.  

1. Call the hotel every day for a week to see if anything has been turned in.  
2. Ask the hotel to check their security cameras to see if they could see anything.
3. Begin documenting our trip in writing to remember every little detail.
4. Check my "nice camera" to see how many pictures we ended up with.
5. Look at the emails I sent to our parents and see what pictures I could get from those.

And ultimately, I learned a lot from this $200 loss.  From now on, I am going to have my pictures printed out.  I am going to start making photo books of all of our trips as well as one for each year.  Otherwise, I fear that my computer will crash and I will lose more pictures than just 5 days worth.  But even deeper than that, I learned that what I experience here in the United States....most of my "problems"....are First World Problems.  People in third-world countries would never have to worry about losing an iPod on a beach vacation to Hilton Head Island.  Why?  Because they would have never had those lavish things to begin with.  Their worries?  The AIDS pandemic, not having clean water/food, not having enough money to make ends meat, their children getting taken away during the night, being orphaned at age 10 and having siblings that you are now responsible for, and the list goes on.  And that, my friends, makes the loss of an iPod irrelevant.

Random statistic for you-  Did you know that if you have a household income of $49,000 you are in the top 1% of the richest people on planet Earth?  And, if you want to hear an incredible message about first-world problems, I suggest you listening to this sermon series called "Rich People Syndrome"!  It is from Hope Community Church (my home church) and has 4 messages that are a part of the series: When Enough is not Enough, Making Room for What Matters, How do we Ease the Squeeze, and Your Life Well Spent.

http://www.gethope.net/rich-people-syndrome

So, after all that, I will be blogging about our fantastic vacation.  Most of it will be written, but we do have *some* pictures.  And for the things that I want to remember that we don't have pictures of?  Well, I'll just have to get creative!