5 Things you Might not be Thankful for, but Should Be, By Gabby M.

5 Things you Might not be Thankful for, but Should Be

By Gabby M.

How much do you like dirty dishes? Or piles of laundry? Or cleaning in general?

I can say I have my preferences about cleaning, like I would rather wash dishes than dry them. But I get tired of it, especially with kids around making a mess of what you just cleaned!

You're probably wondering what this has to do with thankfulness.

I'm not heading into the cliche "be thankful for what you have because you don't live in a third world country." Because that simply doesn't express the amount of prosperity we've been blessed with.

When I took a trip to Haiti in April, I saw a lot of things that broke my heart. A little Haitian girl no older than 5 was sleeping under a table her mom had set up to sell things. She was curled up in a ball on a piece of cardboard while cars and motorcycles whizzed by 5 feet from her head. Thats what she has to do to get some rest.

We went and painted a house for a family. When we got there, they were cooking lunch on the porch and kept their dishes stacked like wood in a pile against the wall. The pile wasn't tall. It only took ten minutes to clear out their belongings so we could paint. That's how little they had.

And we complain about having to wash the amount of dishes after our enormous Thanksgiving feasts, cooked in multiple ovens and on top of nice stoves in warm houses?

Some aren't quite that fortunate; even in America there are places of poverty where its a hassle just get dinner at night.

People in Haiti don't usually name their kids till they're one year old because often they don't live past that age. Some people I met were ex voodoo believers. A lot of young Haitians don't have parents.

So 1) We should be thankful we have dishes to wash, clothes to fold, and beds to make.

2) Thankful for our homes, even if they aren't the best.

3) Thankful that your siblings are alive, even when they are bugging you to no end and you kind of want to kill them.

4) Thankful for friends. Sometimes they make mistakes, but friends are necessary God created us to be social to some degree. And by the way, if they backstab you and treat you wrong, they aren't your friends. Just saying.

5) We should be thankful for our families.

Now I know this is a tough one, family can be very dysfunctional. And everyone has family problems no matter who they are in society, and I pray that God will heal the brokenness that may be in your family, reader, because it's a hard thing to go through.

But often what I see is teenagers saying they hate their families or simply don't get along with them. Then they just leave it at that and get angry with their parents over every little thing.

Okay, if your parents give you rules to protect you, don't abuse you, fed you as a child, any of those things, you need to realize that no matter how many fights you've been through, they're still your family. And you never turn your back on your family, even if they do. Christ calls us as Christians and humans in general to love because He first loved us. When you think about that, none of the rest of it matters. You have to have some sort of amount of respect for people, no matter who they are or what they've done to you, period. Don't forget how those good people in your life influenced you, and don't forget to tell them thank you. To tell God thank you.

So I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and don't forget to appreciate what you've been given. :)