I want it, I need it?

I love Addis. No electricity, no phone line, no water. Argh.
That was my immediate reaction just now when the lamp in my room and the soft whirr of the fan abruptly switched off.
I really do love Addis, and I’ve (albeit grudgingly at times) learned to live without the phone line and internet at my house for the past few weeks. The water’s been unreliable lately, and I can take a darn good bucket bath now. The electricity is my finicky relationship around here—it’s on again, off again, but mostly on so I’m ok with it. But when they all three go and I’m praying the gas in my stove will hold out, I can get cranky. It’s not because I can’t adapt, because I can and I’ve had to. I didn’t go on all those camping trips as a kid for nothing, I guess:-)
But I get out of sorts because I don’t want to live without those things. I’m used to them and frankly I like having them around. But I don’t get to choose whether they’re on or off, and that irritates me. I’d be better suited to this if I could say, “Ok, I’ll deal with no water. But only from midnight to 6am, ok?!”
When I view my reaction like that, it’s a little on the ugly side. Who am I to now expect these good things as a requirement for my survival? I’m self-centered, and I live in a place where this should get stripped out of me. But it’s not . . . yet. I am human, and I try to forget how very human I am sometimes. I live in a world where water is precious and not so easy to come by, where electricity is a luxury and one naked bulb in a house is plenty, where a phone is something that defines the haves and the have-nots. Who do I think I am to get angry over losing something that so many never have??
I’m all right, after all. I can open my window and let in some sunlight, I can carry water to my house, I have a cell phone and there’s internet at the office. I have so much, even without these things I tell myself are necessities. God said He would provide for me, and He has never failed me yet. Oh, how small my faith, my daily belief in the truth of that promise!
I should be glad, after, all that I get a chance to realize how little I need and how much I’ve been given.
The fan blade is beginning to turn and the lights are flickering. Life is, indeed, rich.