I watched a video not long ago that stuck with me like no other Youtube parody or fashion haul had. It was the story of a woman who was trapped in a shipping container day in, day out, enduring the suffocating heat by day and freezing at night. Yet, she was thankful: thankful for her beatings, the bugs that bit her, the fact that she was alive and enduring though despised and discarded, treated as inhuman.
I have had hard days these past weeks, and moaned within myself about them knowing that really, compared to so many others, I am incredibly blessed and provided for, that my life is sustained another day in a country that gives me so many freedoms and rights which allow me to live how I wish to live and give me opportunities I simply wouldn't get elsewhere. One of my passions in life has been supporting those who were persecuted for their religious beliefs because I am increasingly aware of the grace shown to me each week when I can walk into church and not have a care in the world apart from a few people slinging about the name of Jesus as if it were a swear word during my week. I do not suffer because I believe in something, and I am truly never thankful enough for that either. Yet this woman wasn't even thankful for the things which are obviously nice, which are obviously privileges and easy to be thankful for. She was thankful for things that would be daily annoyances, that would cause her pain and grief and leave her lonely, isolated. Her name is Helen Berhane, and she is inspiring.
This video also reminded me of a book I read a few years ago called 'The Hiding Place', in which Corrie Ten Boom writes the story of how her Christian family hid Jews fleeing from the Gestapo in Amsterdam before they were caught, taken to a concentration camp and split up, never to see one another again. While they were in these horrific conditions of the camp, she loses faith, becomes self-absorbed and discouraged, becomes bitter... a pretty natural reaction to what we now recognise as one of the most horrifying events in recent humanity. But her sister, on the other hand, has such a different attitude that at one point she thanks God for the flies that bite her in the night and keep her awake. We can barely deal with wasps in the summer - they spoil our barbeques! - yet she learns to love and cherish these beings though she was being torn apart by labour day and night, sleeping in a hot room with many others in inhumane conditions. Yes, she too was thankful.
And I suppose going round my house over the course of a few days is a pathetic attempt to instigate this sort of thankfulness in my own life. These are things to be obviously thankful for, to my shame. You don't see me taking pictures of the dust on my shelves or the bin, or the blemishes on my face, but I suppose someone as ungrateful as I am has to start somewhere.
Jesus said "Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also", and I strive not to treasure and love my possessions so much that they become my identity and source of fulfillment in life. Heck, I've had to wean myself off lifestyle and home blogs because they make me so jealous and subconsciously give me the wrong view that these perfectly fitted and beautiful places complete a person, make them happier and more fulfilled when I know as a result of my Christian faith that there are higher things, greater things to set my mind on. But the things I do have are all gifts, graces, provisions, and I wish I appreciated them more. At the right time, they are given away to serve another, sold to fund something more pressing or passed on simply to recognise that I don't need as much as I thought I did to live. But for now, I can look at pictures that I have taken and think:
"Yes, I am thankful."
And I hope that one day as I mature that my thankfulness extends as far as Helen Berhane's did, because I certainly am not there yet.
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