I don’t consider myself a selfish person. Of course, none of us believes we are selfish or spoiled or any other negative adjective, but my thoughts on that are changing. I’ve been whining, yes, whining about how hard it is to be a single parent, to raise a child on one income, to not have any time for myself and on and on it goes. I think we are all guilty of complaining, at least I hope so, I would hate to be the only one.
I belong to a meetup group and every year they do some charity thing, as a group. This year we are buying, making and serving dinner at a homeless shelter for 160 people. Just that number is staggering. I live in Utah, the homeless shelter is in a nice area, I had no idea we had that many homeless people. This is only one of several shelters in the area and they are all filled to over flowing. It’s less than two weeks before Christmas and in this one shelter alone there are 100 children.
Just thinking about all those families without a home, children without a sense of security brings tears to my eyes, makes me determined to be a better person. I want to be more grateful, more appreciative of what I have, the home I’m able to provide for my daughter.
That’s not really what has made me decide the complaining has to stop. One of the women in our meetup group is another single mother, not surprising, single moms are everywhere. What is most amazing is that this woman is a single parent of a child in a wheelchair and still she finds time to care about other people, to want to be sure people she doesn’t even know have a hot meal.
I complain about how much I have to do, it’s nothing compared to what she has on her plate. Her son cannot communicate, cannot feed himself, she does everything for him. While I’m reminding my child to clean her room, she’s feeding, bathing, and dressing a twelve year old, because he cannot do it himself. Yet she is still making time to cook and serve dinner to 160 people. Not only that, this woman, with the biggest heart I’ve ever known, has used her own money to make sure that every child in that shelter will have a gift.
I’m selfish, spoiled and whiny, but I plan on changing that because I really have nothing to complain about. So thank you Nancy for showing me that I only have it as bad as I convince myself I do.