You Have It So Good.

 

Making my 17 month old lunch I felt so incredibly grateful that I can feed my children. Always.

 It reminded me of something I heard the other day that touched me in so many ways and is bound to reach into your hearts and grab you as it did me. Especially mothers.

A friend of mine told me about a friend of his who recently traveled to Africa to help out in many of the aid programs they have there. In the first few days of her stay she saw the conditions that these people lived in daily, they were hungry, suffering from malnutrition and lived in what many of us would describe as unimaginable. However what stuck her most is what she witnessed one night.

A mother sat in her hut with her three children who were nearly all bones. The children were crying with hunger and begging their mother for food. The mother found a big pot, filled it with water and boiled it over a fire. She told the children that she has some meat and it will take a very long time to cook. Eventually the children fell to sleep crying and tired of waiting and awoke to find their mother and the empty pot. They went to their mother asking if the meat was ready and their mother simply said “I’m sorry but it cooked whilst you were asleep and have missed it, the meat is now gone”.

The lady who witnessed this said she was changed that day. I have to say I am too. My heart tore open as I felt that mothers pain and also felt that mothers love. That mother loved her children so very much that she couldn’t tell them they had no food, she didn’t want to starve them of the one thing they had, hope. How beautiful that mother was. She couldn’t feed her children food but she could still feed them hope, she couldn’t bring herself to tell her children that there was no food and she wasn’t sure if there ever would be….

Think about this the next time you complain that you’re hungry, or when your food is served cold and you wish it were more to your liking. Or how about when you go to your cupboard and say ‘there is nothing to eat’ when your cupboard is full of food it’s just food you don’t want to eat at this time. Think of that mother and her children who right at this very moment are boiling water full of hope.

Be grateful for your life. You have it so good.