No One Said It Would Be Easy…

Today I feel like I'm staggering under the weight of the world.

I'm not even sure why. It started yesterday when I read a feature in my local newspaper about how the number of homeless children is at an all-time high in America. The story featured several  local families that are really struggling – parents living in subsidized motel rooms with their kids while the mother studies to be a Nursing Assistant and tries to get a job with no car and one child who can't afford the .25 for his reduced-price lunch. He's so embarrassed that he asks his teacher if he can sit in the office during lunch so no one will know he can't afford to eat. That was the story that really broke my heart, I think.

And somehow I know these stories are only the tip of the iceberg. People everywhere are suffering.

I know there are people out there who will say that life isn't fair, but is should be. I so WANT it to be.

Why can't we live in a world where everyone has enough? Children have no say in the families into which they're born. They shouldn't suffer because their parents are having a hard time making ends meet. But they do. Each and every day they do.

I turn on the news and see stories of children who are mistreated and hungry and missing, and well… sometimes I just cant bear it. I feel so helpless. How are we supposed to live and be happy and enjoy everything we have when so many people have nothing? Some days I just want to look away, because I feel like the despair will crush me, but that doesn't seem right, either. To turn away is to deny, in a way, and if all I can do is to SEE, to acknowledge, it seems like I should.

But some days I just can't. This is one of those days.