home sweet home

Happy March! Only 14 more days until the most terrible day of them all..perhaps I will stumble upon a soothsayer.
March really came in with a bang, appropriate since March is often associated with March Madness. We had a thunderstorm with hail and tons of rain and wind. It was pretty bad. The power went out for some people, the tornado siren was going off in other parts of town, and a lot of things were canceled, like my sister's band concert.
But something horrific happened in this time that I just found out about this morning. In my friend's neighborhood, which is close to school, one of the family's houses burned down. I don't know how bad, but I heard it was to the ground. I don't want to change the story, so that's all I'll say. My sister knows the girl; she came to school today.
Imagine if that happened to you. I can't even think of what that would be like. All of your furniture, appliances, photographs, school work, and memories - gone. Memories that spanned over generations and hundreds of years - gone in minutes.
The fact that something can be that destructive is really scary. But I bet it's scarier for the family.
I have to admit today was not a fabulous day, because I had two tests and I know I didn't do very well on them. But imagine if what happened to them happened to us and I still had to take the tests. It makes me seem very selfish and greedy to want so much and not appreciate what I have.
If someone said to you, be lucky you have a house, you may think, well, everyone had a house, so I don't have it much better than many others. In 2010, 3.5 million people in our country went to sleep not under a roof and in a bed, but under just the sky and on the ground, in a car, or in a store.
And America is one of the best countries in the world. And we have homelessness problems. Everyday when we come home from school or work, we have a house. We have shelter. And shelter is one of the 3 basic survival needs. Yet 3.5 million go without.
I know it's important to remember the small things, but don't forget the big things that we often overlook. I bet most of us wake up in the morning and eat some breakfast. We don't have to go farther than the fridge or the pantry to get it. Some people wait in lines for it. And food isn't a human right, it's a survival need.
All of my prayers go out to this family. Let God guide you through this difficult time.