Tuesday, December 4, 2012

If I had one wish . . .



               We are currently reading Farmer Boy with my kids right now. It is a darling book written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It is about her husband growing up. I absolutely love books about homesteading and farming families. I love to read about the chores, food, and entertainment of these families. I love that they are often told from the children’s point of view. The enjoyment that these children get out of simpleness is moving. The amount of hard physical labor the people preform is inspiring. And the knowledge that these homemakers have to make something out of nothing is motivating. I want to crawl into these books and live there. 
           There aren't fancy vacations, days of leisure, or convenience foods. There aren't play rooms or movies or washers and dryers! There isn't pinterest, FB, or gmail. I am sure these mothers went all week without “talking to another grown-up all day.” Although the father was usually home and came in for lunch. It is just so amazing to me that they could be so happy. I think that a simple, yet hardworking, lifestyle made it easier to be happy. My grandma once told me that depression was unheard of while she was growing up. They didn't get electricity until she was 12.
               Is it wrong for me to feel like I am living in the wrong era? Yes, most days I feel like I would rather live when you had to churn your own butter! I long to live in the days when children were raised to respect their parents, and parents knew the importance of turning out a good child. Where the family sat together and told stories and played instruments after supper instead of flipping on a TV. I often think that a world where a man’s handshake meant something would have been a nice world to live in.
              
              I am not totally naïve. I realize that there were very hard things about living so long ago—a lot more death, illness, and dependence on weather just to name a few. If you did happen to marry a man that lived a state away from your family, you wouldn't get to see them every year. You defiantly wouldn't get to call a couple of times a month, and pictures of your far away nieces and nephews would be non-existent. So I can rejoice that I was born in these days, days were I have to power to choose my life.
               Recently I have really wanted to find a plot of land, some water and a little cottage, and make a life there. I long for a simpler way of life. I have noticed how people have been thirsting for knowledge lately on the old homesteading ways of life. I got “The Encyclopedia of Country Living” a few years ago for mother’s day. I have wanted chickens for a couple of years, I have made strides to grow a better garden every year. Yet recently something snapped and I have felt an urgency that I have never felt before. I know I am not alone.  All I have to do is go on pinterst and see all of the emergency preparedness and natural remedy pins that have been popping up lately. It seems to be even greater lately. Sometimes I think that if I had that plot of land and knew how to work it, I wouldn't be worried about an impending financial crisis for my family would at least have food.
               Yet, more than the physical threat that a lot of us feel is coming, there is a spiritual threat that is present every day. I long for a day when “black” didn't seem so far different from “white.” A good friend of mine mentioned to me yesterday, “when we were growing up, we could go along with the crowd because the crowd, for the most part, was making good choices. It isn't like that anymore.” I agree. I feel like there is a huge divide in our country right now.
               If the divide had geographical boundaries, I am afraid there would be another civil war. Some people may just dismiss the differences as political variances, yet to me it is moral. Freedoms are being taken away, and they seem to be based on moral ideals. For example, businesses have to provide the morning after and week after pill for their employees—women all over and championing this as a win for women. They say that it is good for a woman to have the right to choose.  What about a company’s right to choose to not pay for something that they feel is morally wrong? Women had the right to choose before. Their first choice was to have sex, second choice to not use protection, and third choice was still to use the pill, they just had to pay for it themselves before. You know a day when people had to pay for their own mistakes, not expect others to do it for them.
               On that subject, we now have to now have health insurance or we will get fined. Health insurance is great, who doesn't want it? Yet WHY is it okay for the government to FORCE me to have it? Public schools all over the country are adding over 300 hours to the school year, which means less time for those children to be with their families. Just to name a couple of things that I really don’t think is right.
               Okay, this seems like a random post with a lot of crazy tangents. I am sure I would fail if I turned this in for a writing assignment but since it is my blog—I can publish what I want—some benefits of the 1st amendments that are still intact! I guess what I am trying to say is that while we feel this urgency to prepare physically—let us not neglect the need to prepare spiritually. There isn't any waiting to see which side you are going to be on. There is such urgency in the Lord’s work. I believe that God will win—it just might take a long haul, deep in the trenches before we see the tide of the battle turn. 

1 comment:

  1. Enjoyed the read, Tiff. I think we all long for "the good old days." I think I grew up during the best of times -- no drugs to speak of, higher morals, no internet (although there are wonderful things about the internet, I would trade it for the potential harm it creates), not so many things in life to "want", TV programs that didn't have to be restricted, and on and on. But today is what it is, and we are all here to try to make a difference for good aren't we. Love you.

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