Gratefulness

  Looking back while growing up, we where not from a family of wealth. There was me and seven other siblings living in old homes with our parents, so in many homes We lived in, it wasn't huge, but the ones that I remembered was two story homes. While I did enjoy our family times but there where times I just wasn't grateful. There was times when I grumbled and complained. I didn't get this and that, we had a wood stove in an unfinished basement. Boy, it put out heat, but somebody had to get the wood. My Dad worked at a factory for many years, but he hustled part time to work a farmers job, and on top of that Dad went and found trees to cut up the wood so we could be warm. I didn't always appreciate him doing that. Like many today we take many things for granted. Dad cut up wood  and stacked it up at the back of the house. Him and siblings took wood to the basement. While I was in the younger end of the family, somebody had to put wood in the wood stove to keep us toasty warm in our home. Dad did a lot. We didn't have indoor steps. We had to go outside on our patio to go to the basement to fill it up. The few times that I remembered, I was told to go to the basement. I complained to myself. I didn't dare open my mouth and complain to Dad.

 

We had to share rooms and beds. Sometimes we would get blankets and sleep on the floor if we had too. Hard floors.. Wasn't happy. Sharing a room and a bed, wasn't happy. At one house we had to walk a great distance on an gravel road to get to our country home from the school bus. Some day's, the sun was scorching us. Me and siblings wasn't always happy. Why couldn't Mom pick us up at the end of the long country road??

 

We also had a big country garden in which I hated at another house. Wasn't happy. Dad wanted a large garden. It was full of everything to keep us fed. 

Why, I thought? it's just to much work. And everyday, we had to start snapping peas, or green beans and start working on the ears of corn. It was the worst. My fingers got sore. We would never complain to the parent's. It became the norm. While we had plenty of things to eat, I still wasn't always grateful. I just wasn't happy.

 

We can spend all or half of our life being ungrateful about many things. But as I grew up, I looked back and remembered how blessed that we all where. Parents who didn't run from work. Parents who loved us. Cared for us. Prayed for us and more. We had parents who wasn't in a wheelchair, we always had a warm house. We where always fed and not standing in long food lines. We had lots of love and fun in our homes with nothing.

 

When we spend time being grateful. Things change. Thinking about today's economy, to be truthful, I'm not happy. But it is what it is and we make the best of a daily train wreck. Being grateful to God for another day. Rain or Sun. Being grateful for our family and few close friends. Being grateful of the home that we have and the cars that we have. Old or new, we don't have to walk. We have jobs that many hate, but yet we are to be grateful as we have some money to make as many others are jobless.

We also are also not in a crazy house. We are in our right mind. We can walk and not bed bound. 

 

So much to be grateful for, right?😉