Between my junior and senior year of high school, I went to Ghana as a foreign exchange student. I lived with a family for three months in a fairly remote part of the country. Every day we walked to get water for cooking, cleaning, and bathing. It was a bit of a hike and water is heavy.

For years after this experience, I would be furious with people who watered their yards. Why would you throw water on grass, when people have to walk and carry water to drink?

At our school in Haiti, we are building a cistern. We will be able to collect water off the school into a large concrete holding tank. When we go to Haiti, we get reminded that clean water is precious and not readily available for many, many people.

We have an irrigation system for our yard. We pay too much money to go through a car wash for gallons of water to be jetted at our car. We run water down the sink, waiting for warm water to wash our face. We think nothing of taking a long shower or hosing down our garage floor.

We take so much for granted, like having clean water; in never ending abundance.

In our men’s group, we were discussing foundational elements in our lives. The example used in our study was a guy who constructed a house of cards over 25 feet tall. That feat was able to be accomplished only with a solid foundation.

Our discussion revolved around the foundations that we’ve built our lives on – family, faith, friends, our identity through jobs. Then we talked about what knocks cards out or crumbles our foundations? Death, doubt, health issues, moving, loss of employment, or misfortune weakens us at the core and deteriorates our base.

All of our paths have bumps and bruises. We will also have experiences that broaden or alter our perspective.

Every once in a while, we need to reevaluate and remember what is at our foundation.
Every once in a while, we need reminders that our cards could tumble.
Every once in a while, we should not take things for granted.
Every once in a while, we need a dirty car and brown grass.