So Much.

I've just finished reading a book. Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust. It's the true story of a young Jewish girl, who lived through World War II, and experienced  the horrors or several concentration camps. She was thirteen when her and her family went to the camps; they were there for about eighteen months. When the war was over and they were free, she looked to be sixty years old.  I'm not doing a book review of this book, because I seem to have lost my knack for writing them... But this book really showed me how blessed I am.

I am living in a nice, warm, comfortable and spacious house. I am wearing nice, well-fitting warm clothes. In fact I just got some new clothes today. I have just eaten my third meal of the day, and at every meal, I ate well. I am not living in constant fear of death in a gas chamber. I am not outside working hard in the freezing weather all day every day. It is windy, wet and cold outside right now. But I wouldn't even know, except I can hear it outside my window. I am not yelled at and treated like an animal. I am not a number. I am blessed. I have my Mum, my brother and my sister all here with me. We are all healthy and happy.

This book tells a true story. I can't write it off by thinking, 'Oh, well. It didn't really happen anyway.' It happened. All the time I was reading it, I kept contrasting Elli's life and hardship - what she had to face every day, just in order to survive - to my own life. It is such a contrast. I have everything. She had nothing. Reading this book changed the saying for me -'Be thankful for small mercies.'- to 'Be thankful for all mercies.'