Thankful or Not

As I sit here in my nice warm house, with my family by my side and food in my belly...

I am reminded that we have a great deal to be thankful for...


We are a rich people in every way, even when money is short...

There has never been a day that I have had to feed my kids dirt for cookies

or drink from water where animals urinated or other people bathed...

There has never been a time that we had to eat one cup of rice for the whole day and be thankful for that.. praying for the same ration for the next day..

There has never been a day when my little kids tummies were bloated from malnutrition or disease...

There has never been a night when we had to cover up with newspapers and sleep in a cardboard box and hope that we would make it through the night without freezing to death.

There has never been a time in my kids life that we had to walk miles upon miles to get to medical help,.. that is available to us without question...

There has never been a time that any of my family has needed a medical procedure and were denied because there was no doctor or medical staff available or they were in a different country...

There has never been a time when my cupboards were bare, although one time we were down to a can of kidney beans and a can of sardines.. good thing my mom came along to take me shopping.. thank you mom.

There are many times that my kids say to me .. mom there's nothing to eat in this house.. I look at them and just shake my head.. There's plenty to eat.. you are just feeling too lazy to cook. they groan...

I look at the freedoms I enjoy each day.. and I think of my fellow prisoners who are behind bars.. their freedoms have been taken away and half of the time they are not even treated as human beings.. often being denied their medical needs, going without their glasses for several weeks because soemone decided that person didn't need their eyes, or because they didn't hear "med call" the "nursing staff" decided that he would be fine without his perscribed medicaiton. How about the prsioner they locked in a 4'x6'cell for 7 days and the person couldn't even stand up straight in the cell because it was about 5'high and he is 6'3.

I think about being able to hop in my vehicle(s) and be able to go wherever I feel like going. There are people in the world that would give their shirt off their back to be able to have a fraction of the freedoms we know and take for granted, pretty much on a daily basis..

One thing that all Americans have is the freedom of worship. We can worship God or choose to walk away from him. We can go to the church of our choice, at the time we choose..

We are a priveledged people and I think that we are greedy, selfish and arrogant towards The Lord and towards our fellow people. We take our blessings for granted and assume that they are our Rights instead of our priveledges.

We go out to eat whenever we feel like it and waste tons of food. We wear our clothing for short periods of time and discard them, merely for boredom's sake.
We feel that we must drive a better vehichle than someone else and have better homes than them and the money that is spent on our selfishness goes on and on, with little regard for the poor and homeless.

We rarely consider the needs of the widows and the orphans. We don't write to those in prison, "because what would I say" we don't visit the shut-ins we steer clear of nursing homes and nelglect to help our neighbors who are in need..

Why is this our society today. Because it boils down to being Thankful or Not.

There are things that I am guilty of. I am not perfect, nor do I write this to suggest such a thing. I am merely writing this to wake up the people in this country.

We need to get back to the way it used to be.. with people loving those around them and caring for those in need. We need to stop being so self centered and start showing that we appreciate the blessings that we are so freely given.

There will come a day, that the Lord Almighty will turn us over to a depraived mind. He will cut off our inheritance and leave us standing still, wondering where our next meal will come from, wondering how on earth we will provide for our children.

But if we turn from our wickedness and surrender our lives back to The Lord, then he will have mercy on our souls and provide for us.

Let us not become arrogant to God. There are those who say "I don't believe in God.." You will be sorry that you talked that way, because there will come a day of judgement and I don't want to be one of those ones he tells "Depart from me for I never knew you." Depart to eternal hell and damnation. A place of suffering and costant torment, a place of grinding of teeth and weeping and wailing, forever.

So today, let this be the day that you take inventory of your blessings and let this be the day that you and your family decide that you will become blessings to someone else.