Hashtag Grateful

I don't use hashtags, I don't twitter so I don't really understand them.  I enjoy when people come up with clever ones and roll my eyes at #blessed when someone is tagging a picture of their fancy car.  But if I were to pick a hashtag to describe my week it would be grateful.

My niece and her husband have spent the last 2 weeks at Sick kids with their 3 month old daughter and 3 weeks before that at a couple other hospitals.  My girls pray for their cousin Marlena every day so we decided to make a little trip and go visit them so the girls could see their cousin and get a better understanding of what and who they had been praying for.  For Mia especially we wanted her to understand that there were other kids out there living a much different life than her and hopefully understand what it meant to be grateful.  It turned out to be a bigger moment for me as I saw all these kids and their parents.  Thinking about how much life can change quickly and having a sick child will just put a complete pause button on your life.  Some of those kids had been there a year or more living their life in a hospital.  Their birthday, Christmas all in a hospital.  My heart just broke more and more every room we passed and those sweet little faces and moms and dads who were keeping a smile on their face for their kids sake but falling apart on the inside.  I couldn't help but just cry out to God in gratitude for our healthy children.

Then this week we took our girls to the grocery store to do a big shop to drop off at the food bank.  Mia is a serious picky eater and it's hard to help a 4 year old understand wasting food and how many people don't have anything to eat.  She is understanding more through the sponsor child we write to in Kenya but she needs to know it happens in our community as well.  After we dropped everything off I was talking to the lady at the front and a girl came in asking for diapers and formula for her baby.  Again I was just so grateful.  Grateful that God provides for our family and that through us and many other people who donate God can provide for that young girl as well.

We want our girls to really understand helping others and that if we are blessed we need to pass that along and bless others, help people when they need it without question and without anything in return and the best way to do it is these teachable moments when we can lead by example.