Today is Thanksgiving.
Last night I got hit by a giant wave of emotion.
It just smacked me in the face and I felt like I was going to explode.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to break something. I wanted to do something physical to release the emotional pain that came out of nowhere.
It happens sometimes. But last night it was really intense. It was different.
I didn't know how to describe it to Jenny. I just felt....burdened. I don't have a good word for it. My heart felt like it was going to explode.
Everything I saw, did, heard, thought reminded me of the injustices in the world.
The incredible amounts of poverty everywhere.
The violence, the hatred, the disease, the suffering.
And the apathy that so many of us have about it.
And how I do nothing.
Nothing.
But I am responsible.
My inaction, and yours, is directly responsible for an incredible amount of injustice, hunger, pain, suffering and death.
But we aren't the ones who suffer.
We don't really feel it.
And so today we gather and think about the things we're thankful for.
For our friends, for our family, for our health, our incredible blessing for being born where we were, for the things that have happened to us that we've had no control over.
It's the point of comparison that allows for the thanksgiving in the first place.
I'm thankful, because I know what could have happened instead.
I could have been born into much worse conditions.
I have nothing to do with where I was born, my race, nationality or economic conditions, etc.
I have nothing to do with not having to work 6 hours each day just carrying parasite filled water back home. I have done nothing to deserve having a healthy, happy child. Instead of one who lives their life starving. Instead of one whom I would beg strangers to take from me just so that she would have a chance of growing up beyond childhood.
I have not earned my life.
None of us has earned anything.
So we need to be thankful. Thankful that God has blessed us the way he has.
We need to remember what could have happened to us...what has happened to others. Those of us with such excess and great fortune should do everything we can for those without.
We should feel, we should care, and it needs to spur us to actually doing something.
We need to plead with God to help others. We need to fight with him to pull people out from injustice, suffering, oppression, disease and death. To give his great blessings that he has given us to others.
Our prayer and our argument need to be our actions.
