when one road leads to another

twenty years ago, on my summer vacation from college, i went looking for a job.  i drove the length of the world's longest driveway to meet a family that changed my life forever.  they hired me as a servant.  i had never known wealth before or experienced the social situations that come with money.  i felt burdened by their life because i didn't understand.  we came from different places.  i felt sorry for them, even though they had the world at their finger tips.  i put in long, hard, hours.  begrudgingly.  thinking:  what would they do with out me?

at the end of each day, i would drive away from there and feel the weight of the world fly off my shoulders like the dust behind my car.  their lives a distant memory in my rear view.

those people, that house, their things, made me re-define what it means to be broken and needy.  i was self-righteous to think i was a benefit to them.  selfish to think my value added to theirs.  judgmental to question their belongings and values.  

to this day i find them to be the most unlikely of teachers.  still, they have given me so much knowledge.  they taught me how to serve.  how to have humility.  and showed me how to love selflessly and humbly.  they gave me an education in all of the values i was sure i had already mastered.  they wanted to teach me the ways of their world, and instead taught me more about my own.