Structures & Dwellings…Give Thanks

I don’t know in what kind of structure you grew up. It may have been an apartment, a condominium, a house or something else. It may have been one where multiple generations of your family lived under the same roof, or a place where only you and one parent dwelled. Maybe you shared a room with a sibling, or had a bed and room all to yourself. Maybe you had pets that lived inside or your pets lived outside in their own small house. The plumbing may have made noises or the hot water took forever to make it to the shower. Maybe you had a frumpy sofa where you watched your first scary movie, or you had a sleeper sofa where out of town guests slept every holiday gathering. We each had our own experience growing up in different spaces. 

Those spaces had an impact on who we became as adults. They taught us things, they provided things, they were a place where we learned about ourselves. At night we dreamed about who we might become, or who we never wanted to become. We pondered the meaning of life and why we belonged or didn’t belong at school. When we were young, home meant something. It meant safety, or fear, family or loneliness. Going home meant we would be greeted by people we loved or people we wanted to avoid but couldn’t. Home for some is a wonderful concept, for others it is an elusive concept that they have yet to understand. 

The average age for a homeless person in the Atlanta area is nine…yes, 9. There are more homeless children than there are homeless adults. These children grow up in shelters or in cars, on the street or moving from place to place. All too often they miss school and learning, they forget how to socialize for fear of people finding out they are homeless, and they never have the peace of sleeping in their own bed. Their parents are doing teh best they can, and somehow never seem to get ahead. 

If you know where you are going to sleep tonight, give thanks. If you know that your bed will be clean, quiet and warm, give thanks. If you know that the roof over your head will protect you from the elements and that you will have something to eat when you wake up, give thanks. No matter what is going on in your world, when you wake up in a bed of your own where you could dream in peace then you are wealthier than too many children in the Atlanta area…so give thanks.