Thankfulness and Other small? Matters

 I love traditions. Especially the family ones, that happen every year, like Thanksgiving at my Grandmama's - and birthday party campouts - and the talent show - and camp - and staying up till past midnight on the last day of the year - and getting a treat for each of the children once they learn how to read - I just love those traditions. I love relishing the joy of family, and being able to expect and look forward to those traditions every year.

I am thankful for small children, so cute and sweet...

I am thankful for family gathering together and having a blast...

 I am thankful for photogenic sisters and babies...

 

I am thankful for individual personalities, and I am thankful for my only brother - such a wonderful brother he is.

I am thankful for the best of uncles, who is always so helpful and kind. And fun to be around. <3

I am thankful for a baby sister, who proudly believes in herself and says she can do things, like pull her second cousins around in the wagon. "I can do it too, Baba!"

I am thankful for having fun.

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 This year my family didn't go to my Grandmama's for the traditional Thanksgiving day full of fun. I felt some sadness, perhaps, at missing out on fun filled family traditions, but I enjoyed the day anyways. It was a good day, full of a few small family traditions, and of course, good food and company. :) Nothing is better than family. <3

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I am thankful for stovetops which make for easy cooking, and I'm thankful for little sisters who have tons of personality!

I am thankful for little siblings to help out and make baking/cooking SO much more fun.

I am thankful for missing teeth, and other random cuteness....

I'm thankful for sisters I can relate to, and have fun with, and play games with... And cook with!

I'm thankful for sisters who cut the onions for me! ;)

I'm thankful for getting together with family who I've not seen for a while.

I'm thankful for fried onions. xD

I'm thankful for elder sisters... especially elder sisters who can bake...

Even though I don't look like I am, I am thankful for turkey, and knives!

I'm thankful for enthusiasm.

And thriftiness.

I am thankful for beautiful sisters who I can photograph...

And thankful for giant desert plates. xD

I'm thankful for Dad's humor, and Michael's as well.

I'm thankful for special gifts, from Mom...

And I'm thankful for family.

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Even with all that being said, and with all the pictures showing so many happy faces, I was reminded of the great blessings that I and so many others have here. We have family, and the ability to create traditions, and money for special Thanksgiving Day food, and a warm home to have them in. Some of us have even much more than that. That evening, my family watched The Dropbox together. If you have never seen that movie, you definitely should. It is an extremely moving one. There were several quotes that made me tear up. Words you don't hear every day, that you don't want to hear, that you don't expect to hear.

A nurse at the hospital: Why are you crying? It’s only an orphan.

Dad of disabled child: I hope she dies before me because there is no one to take care of her after I die.

Pastor: If I don’t do something to help, I could be picking up dead babies off the street.

There were 204 abandoned babies in 2013.

“Either way, my life will be over so I want to kill myself and my baby.”

 The movie created such an ache in my soul. Unwanted children, because of their genetic makeup, or because the culture would make it so difficult to keep the child.... deserted on the streets, abandoned, given away, flushed down the toilet, even. It is so horrible that it's almost unbelievable. I hate to say it because I can empathize with the desperation that the mother feels, but it's selfishness in it's greatest to abandon a helpless child in the open streets.

At one point in the movie, a Korean police officer was touring the camera crew through the raining city. "And here we found the dead body of a baby..." and another place: "A neighbour heard the sound of a crying cat, and came out to find a baby lying here. A little bit longer, and he would've frozen to death. It doesn't always turn out this way."

But that one quote, the one where the nurse said, "Why are you crying? It's only an orphan." I couldn't believe she said that. There had been a baby who died, and the one (missionary) lady interviewed in the movie had been there, and frantically tried to help the baby... but the head nurse scolded her for taking the baby from one of the other nurses, and said it. It's only an orphan.

It.

Only. 

Orphan....

 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

~James 1:27