Today I feel like I’m staggering under the weight of the world.
I’m not even sure why. It started yesterday when I read a feature in my local newspaper about how the number of homeless children is at an all-time high in America. The story featured several local families that are really struggling – parents living in subsidized motel rooms with their kids while the mother studies to be a Nursing Assistant and tries to get a job with no car and one child who can’t afford the .25 for his reduced-price lunch. He’s so embarrassed that he asks his teacher if he can sit in the office during lunch so no one will know he can’t afford to eat. That was the story that really broke my heart, I think.
And somehow I know these stories are only the tip of the iceberg. People everywhere are suffering.
I know there are people out there who will say that life isn’t fair, but is should be. I so WANT it to be.
Why can’t we live in a world where everyone has enough? Children have no say in the families into which they’re born. They shouldn’t suffer because their parents are having a hard time making ends meet. But they do. Each and every day they do.
I turn on the news and see stories of children who are mistreated and hungry and missing, and well… sometimes I just cant bear it. I feel so helpless. How are we supposed to live and be happy and enjoy everything we have when so many people have nothing? Some days I just want to look away, because I feel like the despair will crush me, but that doesn’t seem right, either. To turn away is to deny, in a way, and if all I can do is to SEE, to acknowledge, it seems like I should.
But some days I just can’t. This is one of those days.
<3
3 replies on “No One Said It Would Be Easy…”
I feel the same way you feel. I try not to watch the news if I can help it. It’s too sad, too depressing. My husband and I struggle, but not even close to what the people in your story are going through. 🙁 It does make me sad. It makes me want to help these people. I, like you, feel for those children who have to endure the shame that seems to follow them and hope that some day they can rise above the circumstances that have been thrust upon them and make better lives for themselves and their families. Unfortunately, though, it seems that, usually, if their parents aren’t well-educated or well-funded enough, they tend to not have the chance to do well. It’s a vicious cycle that really needs to be broken.
I feel the same as you about this. 🙁
The day before Thanksgiving my wife was going in the grocery store and there was a young couple with a little baby asking people for help. She didn’t have any money on her but on her way out she took some money out of our account to give to the couple, but they were already gone.
You’re right, children can’t help the family they’re born into. Whenever I see a kid on the street or on the news waiting outside a soup kitchen or a shelter I just want to take them and their family and get them a meal for the night. A drop of kindness goes a long way.
[…] suffering of people around the country and how people kids can’t afford to eat. The post is here. As Michelle says, “Children have no say into which families they are born.” And they […]