As I watch the horrible pictures of the earthquake in Turkey. As I seemen and women running on the streets looking back at their homes crashing to the ground, I shudder. It could be any country in the world who could be going through this. It could be you or me! Below our steady feet is a shaky ground that could give way any moment.
And yet we walk around ungrateful for life itself! How easy to forget being thankful for all we take for granted:
We are irritated our child hasn’t done well in school, right? But give thanks he or she isn’t hanging from the end of a rope like what’s happening to many kids, all around the world and many in our country too.
We are unhappy with our job, with the distance we have to travel to work, but see yon face of him who’s been sacked, who gets into car which he hasn’t paid for, enters a house whose loan is so huge, the lift shudders as it takes him up to his flat in the skies, which is already flying away. Give thanks for your secure job. We look at our ordinary spouses and ogle hunks on the sports page or semi-nude mates many publications provide for our lustful selves, forgetting that such fellows and beauties have egos to be filled and wants to be satiated, till they finally walk away. “Thank you for your adoration, but we need to find other worshippers!” Give thanks to the spouse who loves you! I look at the pictures of grief again and my heart cries out in thanks: Thank you for the scorching sun that even as I get burnt and complain I know I can walk and run outside, not an invalid somewhere! Thank you for the rains that were upon us that even as I sighed and opened the umbrella, knew I had a head to protect and not one under a surgeon’s knife! Thank you for traffic jams, for as I look at other cars blocking my way, I know I’m in the midst of people and not locked away in jail or a detention centre in some country that will not tolerate my plain, blunt, candid views! Thank you for all the things I keep complaining about, that even as I complain, I hope for change, something that many under the rubble, or even others rescued can’t ever hope for! Let’s not wait for sorrow to realize how we take much for granted, instead start appreciating and giving God thanks for life itself and things you and I haven’t been giving thanks for till now, even those annoying, irritating little stuff that tell us we have a reason to be thankful..!
