Gratitude

Everywhere in the world, people suffer. Heartache, loss, pain, loneliness, violence and horror even. Here in America, the most horrific pains of humanity are kept quiet or are too far away to feel real. But every great once in a while, someone close to you feels a kind of pain you will never know, or tragedy strikes a little closer to you on the globe and it is at these times I am humbled and grateful for my own troubles. This week, our dear friends from Washington Victor and Rhonda Beattie lost their only son, Cliff. He was a soldier in the United States Army, and was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. My heart aches for them, but I know that this emotion does not even come close to what they must be feeling.

Last night, a terrible series of tornadoes tore through Oklahoma. Only nine counties in the state were not declared to be under a state of emergency. Lives have been lost, more to be found I'm sure, but one particular story saddens me. A family took shelter in a building, but the building was obliterated and for a little while, the children were missing. They found the 5 year old alive, but the 15 month old died and the 3 year old is still missing. While I was watching the storm through my dining room window and hoping the hail wouldn't break the glass on our vehicle, just to the south, a mother found out that her baby was dead and that her other little one was missing. I should have been on my knees praying that those in the tornado's path would be kept safe.

I am so grateful for my bills and dirty laundry. For endless trips to the grocery store, for my naughty doggies, and for messes to clean up. I am grateful for the sweet hugs my children give me, for their happy faces and even for their whining. I am grateful to have a hardworking husband, even if it means he works too hard. I am grateful for all the things I usually take for granted, when there are people suffering so greatly in places I will never see, suffering in ways I will never know. What makes me so special that I am here worrying over such trivial things, while others bear their burdens with humility and enduring love. I'm sure I'll never understand it, but I can only hope to be more humble and prayerful. Somewhere out there, someone is suffering much greater than I. For the neighbor who's troubles I know not, for a friend who lost a loved one, for the stranger who just cut me off in the street, for the woman in another country who is being punished for no crime at all, for the small hungry child in the small village in that small part of the world.... I pray.