How To Be Thankful

Posted on 04.24.07 in Thoughts and there are 5 comments.

Sometimes all it takes to turn a bad day into a good day is to have a healthy dose of perspective.

One of the blogs I read is called Rebekah’s Page. I’ve mentioned it here before. It’s written by the parents of Rebekah who is a 5 year old girl fighting cancer. She’s doing ok right now, but often her parents will share the stories of other children who need our prayers.

On Sunday evening, I was feeling grumpy because my son had slept all day and I was certain I was in for a very long and exhausting night.

In the midst of this pity party, I was reading blog entries and read this:

Please Pray for Rachel (2 years old - pictured left) and her Mom Jodi, Dad Mark and brothers Blake and Lance.

Here is their latest post:
Sunday, April 22, 2007 5:15 PM CDT

Yes, yesterday was not a good day. We were quite frightened by the events that took place and it hit Mark and I quite hard with the realization that Rachel is going to die.

She had such incredible pain and screamed and screamed and screamed. I had no sleep that evening (Rachel and Mark didn’t get much either) and the entire family went to the hospital very early yesterday morning.

Rachel finally slept at the hospital (didn’t even have new pain meds started yet) but all too soon it was time to leave to go to her birthday party. As far as her party is concerned, in two words, it sucked. She was in pain, and wasn’t able to interact with her friends at all. She did open her gifts and she did sit at the table and have a couple of bites of cake, but otherwise she was in Mark’s or my lap.

Mark and I felt horrid yet that’s where she wanted to be. How do you deprive her of that???? I really don’t know what her little friends thought (or their parents), but again, she so desperately wanted to be there. And so she was.

After reading that, I quickly stopped feeling sorry for myself and thanked God for my healthy family.

Read the rest of the entry at Rebekah’s Page here. Learn more about Rachel’s story here.

I know it’s tempting to not click on those links. Who wants to read a sad story about a child with cancer? But I don’t think we’re given good health, free time or extra energy so that we can spend our time trying to fill our lives with pleasures for ourselves.

We need to dive into the lives of others and bring some hope and joy where there is none.

So, click on the links above. Take some time to pray for Rebekah and Rachel.

Nothing can make you thankful like helping others and getting a good dose of perspective.

Before I read about Rachel, I was grumpy about my lack of sleep but afterwards I was only thankful for my healthy kids.

So did reading this change your perspective on your situation?

The Comments:

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wow…

And yes, Kat, I agree with you. “I don’t think we’re given good health, free time or extra energy so that we can spend our time trying to fill our lives with pleasures for ourselves.

We need to dive into the lives of others and bring some hope and joy where there is none.”

Thank you for the reminder, the perspective, the link, and the opportunity to pray for these families and children. 

The message I’ve been recieving over and over again lately, and your post confirmed it once more, is that time is fleeting with our little ones, we only have a little bit to show them God’s love, before we send them out, so enjoy them now.

I don’t suppose it change my perspective too much, because I already had two of those same kind of exchanges with moms today.  One mom told me how she sent her 13 year old to boarding school this year, I suspect, because he’s difficult for her.  My 13 year old can be moody, but I miss him when he’s gone to a friend’s for an overnight!  He’s fun to be around.  The second mom told me her 8 year old daughter is having grueling tummy pain every day now and docs are NOT helping.  Sigh.  I am so grateful for my super healthy little people.

Kat, thanks for your post and the links to Rebekah and Rachel. Perspective is a great thing.  Many days when I’m frustrated with my girls, I remember the families who have lost kids to cancer or the families that are struggling to keep their kiddo alive and it reminds me to be thankful for where I am and all that I have.  It is all a matter of perspective.  Show them you love them today because you never know what tomorrow will bring.  Life can be short.

Good post.  Contentment and gratitude are two things with which we, as Americans and part of the Western world, struggle.  What Rachel and Rebekah and their families are enduring is very tough; we have friends whose little boy is in treatment for lymphoma. We’ve another friend whose son (now 11 and in good health) had a heart transplant as a newborn and then developed cancer from the drugs he took to prevent rejection of the new heart.  Hearing the struggle and pain they’ve endured makes me grateful for my family’s health.

I was thinking on how well our children are cared for this morning.  As I drove in to work I listened to an NPR story on Russia halting all adoptions, partially as a crackdown on non-governmental agencies and partially because half of the Russian children adopted each year are taken by foreigners and they want to “keep Russian children in Russia”.  What appalled me was hearing how overcrowded their orphanage system is, with the children totally isolated from everything not in the orphanage, and babies waiting for months in cribs in hospitals before a place can be found for them at an orphanage, given no attention except to feed and occasionally change them.  A recent stir was created when a new mother in a hospital stumbled across one of these abandoned baby rooms in the hospital and videotaped with her phone these babies in cribs with their mouths taped shut by the doctors and nurses to keep them from crying.  (You can read the story here, and it has a link for you to listen to the story giving more details than the written story.)

I’m very thankful my children are in a place where they are shown love and that they are healthy.  And I pray for these children I’ve never met, those struggling with disease and those struggling with surviving in a place where no one wants them.

Euphrony, my cousin went on a mission trip to Russia years ago, and she and a little boy in an orphanage just fell in love with each other.  But the government wouldn’t let her adopt him.  Heartless.  We should pray for all of those parentless children.  I pray that they’ll come to know their heavenly Father one day.

And Kat, thanks for the great reminder!  I’m going to click on those links and pray for those precious babies.

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