Welcome to this week’s Grateful Heart Monday where gratitude continues to be the focus of my writing at the start of each week, which for today is for something I tend to think many of us in the United States often take for granted, which is having ample access to potable water.
Whenever I’m thirsty, I have countless choices here in my home to quench it, water being the most prevalent. My fridge has a filtered water dispenser, I have multiple sinks in the house where I can get clean city water, I always keep several 12-packs of flavored soda water on hand, and usually a few cases of 2-liter bottles of Smart Water as well. Add in the fact that I also have a nice hot shower to keep myself clean every single day, I generally never think about all those out there around the world who struggle just to get any water at all.
In one of the latest published facts from WHO and UNICEF, it is said that globally more than 785 million people do not have access to at least basic water services and more than 884 million people do not have safe water to drink. This alarming fact came even more to light to me when I was at a Lauren Daigle concert in Toledo a week ago. There, during an intermission, a guy came on stage and talked underprivileged children from Kenya who needed sponsorship. One of the things the speaker mentioned was how these children and their families in Kenya were taking their sweat-soaked shirts and squeezing the water out of them just to get any sort of moisture back into their bodies during some of the drought-stricken times! And some of the local villages have to walk over an hour just to get to the nearest well for drinking water!
After hearing this, I truly felt spoiled and ashamed of how good I have it when it comes to simple things like this. It really made me grateful for something that is so easy to take for granted.
So, on this Grateful Heart Monday, I’m wanting to express my gratitude for having always had access to water my entire life and never going without it on any level, from drinking to cleaning, when so many around the globe struggle to get even a few drops of it on many-a-days…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
