a bit of charity

I've been really grumpy and upset over the last few weeks, because my parents just sold our house, which I love so much, and bought a horrible small blah house, which I hate. I've been at this house forever and have really good memories here, which makes it so hard.

But on the radio this morning (ZM - a New Zealand station) the station got this really poor family out of their house for a few hours and put all this stuff inside - food, appliances, a Christmas tree, toys for the kids, and so on. This family is apparently a really lovely family, but REALLY hard-up too, they have ten kids and a sick grandmother as well as the parents in the house, and it's a tiny little house that is in really bad shape. Their van had broken down ages ago so they had no means of transportation. Well, the generosity of small businesses and other people listening was really incredible and it was very humbling to listen to. A car company gave the station a van to give the family that was worth $13000, when the station had only raised about $6000 towards it. Things like that.

But it got me thinking how lucky I am to have had such a nice home all the time I've been growing up. And how pathetic it is that I'm so angry about moving to such a ... I'm going to have say, nice home - I don't have to like it as much as this one I'm in now, but I have to appreciate that in it, I'm not going to want for shelter or warmth or food or love. Yes, I'm still upset, but many people don't have half what I have. Many people don't have a hundredth of what I have.