A staple serves as a reminder.

This morning, during the normal insane moments of the Corner Clan, i was pulling a fundraiser envelope off a calendar and ripped my finger on the staple.  

My first thought was "Ouch."

My second thought was "I wonder how many others did that and are thinking of suing the Holocaust Museum for pain and suffering."

Then, while sucking on my finger, i stopped and thought "Well, that put my life in perspective today."

Here i was, sucking on a sore index finger, from a calendar that reminds us one of one the worst times in our history.  

A time that highlights the horrors, and the greed of humans.  People without a heart made money off of human hair, gold ripped from the mouths of others, from art that was stolen from homes as the owners were thrown into camps and gas chambers.  It also highlights the strength in those who lost everything, but fought to survive and go on.  People who lost everything, their loved ones, their homes, their everything, but lived on.

Looking around my house, i see furniture and yarn, and pictures of kids who make my life whole.  I have plants, i have food in the fridge, i have clean clothes on my back.   We don't have the best of everything, but we have enough to get us through the day comfortably.

I think of times i think "I wish i had..." and feel ashamed as i look through the calendar, being reminded of all the indignities suffered by Jews and others in Europe over 75 years ago.  I am reminded of a neighbor on Mgr. v/d Wetering Straat, who had a milk pitcher on her window sill, with a picture of lovely woman and her son next to it.   The pitcher hadn't been moved since the mother had come over to ask for some milk, then saw the soldiers at her front door, ran out to be with her family, and was never seen again.  The couple on the next street over that always wore long sleeves, ashamed even 30 years later, of the numbers tattooed on their arms.  

It's so easy to want more.  It's so easy to think we deserve more.

Then, with something as simple as a staple, one is reminded of all we have, all we have been given, all we are blessed with.

Matthew 6.26:  Look  at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barnds, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they ?

There are times, we may not have enough food to feed our children, but we can reach out to friends, and they can reach out to us, and food is shared among the families.  Because it always seems, when you don't have something, a friend is blessed with extra.

When a car breaks down, someone is home for the day and hands you the keys to their car.

When you need long black pants, when you need a lunch box, when you a hug, someone is always there, because He put them there.

God carries us in more ways than we realize.  We take so much for granted, we don't think of all the times God put His coat over the puddle so we don't get wet, we don't suffer, we don't lack in what we need.

Life isn't perfect, we have pain, we lack, we feel loss, we suffer hunger in more ways than one...but compared to what others have suffered, we got it okay.

I love you.