Grateful Friday

Stick with me here, I'll get to the gratitude, let me start with the guilt though.

In addition to feeling heartbroken, I've felt a little guilty this week.

I've felt guilty when I could turn away from the news headlines because they were too awful.  I have the luxury of being able to shelter myself from the savagery by staying away from the news.

I've felt guilty that through some incredible luck of the draw that I had nothing to do with, I was born into privilege.  I was born into a free country, into a stable family, into a life brimming with opportunities. My parents, grandparents, none of us has had to make desperate and dangerous decisions just to find freedom and safety and opportunity.

It was just handed to us.

I've felt deep sadness when I've seen images and heard about the unthinkable cruelty of children being ripped away from their mothers.  I've felt horror, drawing similarities in my mind to Nazi Germany.  I've been angry when I've seen Facebook posts by good people that are weirdly and blindly motivated by partisanship, defending evil and a morally corrupt administration.  (I've felt cowardly for not writing indignant responses, but like Braeden said, "No one ever woke up because of a Facebook fight.")

I've felt embarrassed that this is America.  This is how we're treating people?

So what do I have to be grateful about?

Yesterday on our morning walk, Mark said, "I'm not sure our society has as much hope as we used to."

I told him all the reasons there are to hope.  I told him about innovations and medical cures and miracles of technology.

And in addition to the bad in the news, I've also seen the outrage.  I've seen people of all walks of life (including the leaders of my church), rise up and say, "NO!"

And for that, for the reasons to hope as well as for the people fighting the good fight, I'm grateful.