Do We Realize How Privileged We Are?

  This evening my parents and I visited a cemetery which holds many of my ancestors. We found my six times great-grandfather, Col Joseph Hardin. He fought in the Revolutionary War. 

  It was cool to be standing on the same ground as men and woman who came before me, so long ago. But it was also heart breaking. We found three head stones of infants who died. Two of them died the day they were born and the other only lived a month. Those three babies were siblings... I can't imagine the pain of their poor parents. Another set of head stones we found were four siblings who all died within a few years of eachother. These were all Hardins. All related to me in some way. It made my heart ache. Death was so common back then. Women would die in child birth. Children wouldn't make it to adolescence. Sicknesses would sweep through communities and kill hundreds. 

  We live in a time of medicine. A time where people have a real chance to really live. When I start having kids, I won't really have to worry about losing my life when I'm giving birth. There are also vaccines and safety precautions to protect my children. 

  I'm so thankful for how far we've come in the last 150 years. There are things I wish we could go back to, but this is not one of them. 

What about y'all? Have you ever thought about how difficult life was in the 1800s?

Shalom,