Thankful

I woke up today feeling so blessed. Feeling thankful. I can’t say I wake up feeling like that every day, although I should. We all should. Though we face many struggles, our lives here are undoubtedly much simpler than many parts of this world. Just think of all the blessings we have before even leaving our house each day. Blessings we often take for granted, but others would give their lives for.

We wake up every day with our head on a comfy pillow, a roof over our head, cool a/c or warm heat to satisfy us, showers to clean us, towels to dry us, toothbrush and toothpaste for our teeth, clothes and shoes to put on our bodies, food with food choices to eat for breakfast, our spouses and children to begin our day with, food to pack for our children to have lunch at school, pencils and pens to sign papers for school, bookbags to aide our children in their educations, coffee to help you get that “kick start”, televisions to catch up on the news, laptops to check email before leaving. On the way out the door we grab our cell phones, ipods, car keys, pocketbooks, wallets etc. I just named 24 things that we consider part of our expected daily routine for us. The word “expected” should be replaced with “taken for granted”. I just named 24 things that we consider part of our “taken for granted” daily routine for us. And this is just to get us out the door each morning.

Let’s see what other parts of the world wake up to each morning:

A few facts I found on third world countries:

- Many children in Africa are desperate to go to school and learn how to read and write. But most can't - normally because they don't have enough money. You often have to pay school fees, and parents don't have the cash. Also, many children are needed to help out at home. Even children who do go to school have to walk for hours to get there. They have to leave home early to avoid the heat and arrive three hours before their lessons start.

- Children are sometimes forced to become child soldiers and fight - even when they don't understand what the war's about. In Liberia, children as young as seven have been found fighting in combat. Children often get separated from their family because of war - or lose their parents altogether. Many children are sent away from home if the fighting is really bad. And their fathers and brothers go off to war, and may never return. In Rwanda, 300,000 children have no mum or dad and have to run their own family, because their parents were killed in a civil war in 1993.

- Landmines - left over from old conflicts - also threaten children. No one knows where they are and children are often killed or lose limbs when they step on them.

- In areas where there are water shortages, it's usually the girls who have to trek for miles each day to collect it, while the boys might go to school. Girls as young as 10 sometimes have to collect the water for their whole family. Because the girls carry such heavy pots of water, which damages their necks and back, this can lead to them having terrible problems later in life. Girls who go out every morning to get water often can't go to school.

- Millions of children live on one meal a day, and many of them are forced to eat grass seeds and roots.

- In third world countries, you will see very young children begging in the streets because they have no parents, no food, and no place to sleep except for the cold, hard ground. They cry themselves to sleep at night because they're so hungry that the pain never stops. Many don't even live past the age of three.

Let’s take some time to really stop and be thankful for all the bountiful blessings we are given.

Today I am thankful for:

-My loving family who I am so blessed to see often

-A warm place to sleep and food to eat

-A job which helps provide my family with the things they need

-A car to transport my family places

-Quality time to spend with my husband and children

-The freedom to go to church

-Wonderful friends who lift me up

-Doctors who provide much needed care to my loved ones

-My faith

Today I choose to be thankful for the simple things.

What are you thankful for today?