Why I Prepare: Part 1

Well, I started this post over a month ago, and I'm just finally getting around to posting it. I'm sure there are more to follow along the same vein.

Thank you Ellen for suggesting a topic!


Over the past few years I have eased into preparedness slowly. When my husband first started telling me about all the steps his father and grandfather had taken to prepare their homes for the unforeseen, I completely blew him off. I'm sure I tried to be polite, but in my head I was thinking "Oh man.  I married into a bunch of militia member wannabes".  I had never really been introduced to the "preparedness community". To me it just sounded like a bunch of weirdos in the mountains who stockpiled guns and I wanted nothing to do with it. But the more I learned about it, the more I came to realize that the things the people in this community are doing are the same things my grandparents were doing when I was a kid.  Frugality. Living off the land (to one extent or another). Preserving the harvest. Re-purposing items. Helping neighbors. Caring for family. While many in the preparedness community (as many like to refer to themselves) are non religious, there are a great many people who are and see their choosing to be prepared as a way to minister and reach-out to their neighbors.

I have to stop here and clarify something that I was recently made aware of. I think that oftentimes when people hear the phrase "Christian Preparedness" the image that comes to their minds is that of some sort of sect preparing for the Tribulation. Please let me clarify that this is in no way what I mean when I say Christian Preparedness. The reason I put those two words together is because as a Christian I see the logical wisdom behind being prepared for unforeseen events such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, job loss, or any other catastrophic event. I really came to the conclusion that it was wise to prepare before I came to the realization that it was biblical as well. I had been talking to my cousin about the need to prepare for the potential of economic collapse. (Which, by the way, I do think is not impossible in this day and age.) She told me that she felt that God would take care of her and that she should just trust God. I highly respect her willingness and desire to trust God- this is something I strive for in my own life.  However, I have to respectfully disagree with her line of reasoning. It rather reminds me of the man in the middle of the flood who was stuck his roof waiting for God to save him. After turning down help from two passing boats, and even a helicopter, he went to heaven and questioned God as to why God did not save him from the raging flood. As the worn out punchline goes- "I sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more did you want?" God has given us the ability to help ourselves and our neighbors and be (even the slightest bit) prepared, and the vast majority of us choose to gamble with our safety and ability to help our neighbor in times of need and then question "Where was God, why didn't he keep us safe?!"

Here's a simple analogy. Do you wear your seat belt? Do you put your kids in car seats? Do you call the power company before you dig holes in your yard?  If you have little kids, do you put covers on your electrical outlets? Do you have car insurance? Life, medical, dental, vision insurance? These are just a few of the many ways that we prepare every day to keep ourselves and our families safe.

While I have not examined the entire website I've referenced below, and cannot give it a full recommendation, the author manages to present a brief yet interesting list of biblical examples of preparedness as well as a good list of physical reasons to prepare.


Below I have included a great excerpt from Mark12ministries.com
Outline: Here is a proposed outline for the study of Christian Preparedness/ Survivalism-
I. A Biblical Study of Preparedness
1. Bible passages that teach preparing for the future and for disaster (Noah in Gen.6-9 is a good case study)
2. Spiritual themes like Keeping our eyes on Jesus, not on building bigger barns for the wrong reasons.
3. When to flee (Lot leaving Sodom) and when to fight (Esther)
4. A biblical case for hoarding and defending from the book of Judges?
5. Working hard, providing for your family and saving for the future, a biblical view.
6. Why did Jesus’ disciples carry swords?
7. Eschatology and Christian Preparedness- will we be raptured outta here prior to things getting “really bad”? Or will we be like Israel, Judah and 2000 yrs. of church history and go through a time of great suffering?
II. Types of Disasters To Prepare For at the personal, family, church and neighborhood level

1. Small Inconvenient Disasters- flat tires, cell phone dies, weather changes, etc. From common sense to witnessing opportunities, practicing the Golden Rule and 2nd Greatest Commandment.
2. Medical Emergencies- First Aid and CPR Training, First Aid kits, calling 911.
3. “Normal” minor disasters- power outages due to storms, water pipes freezing, house and car fires.
4. Major Natural Disasters- Tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes
5. Self-defense issues
6. Civil disturbances- crime prevention to riots
7. Political Oppression and Persecution (It’s coming to America!)
8. The End Of The World As We Know It scenarios (TEOTWAWKI)- Electrical Grid total failure, EMP blast, Nuclear War, Plague, Asteroid strike, Mega Volcano, etc.

It is currently a quarter till *really late*. I have several other thoughts buzzing around my head ( I know that is desperately hard for some of you to imagine) but I've found that falling asleep with one's forehead on the keyboard is not generally the best way to type a coherent sentence.
I'll try to finish tomorrow...  good night!

Is canning season over yet?

So, my best of intentions had been to post on here often.  Obviously that didn't work out so well for me. We did so much canning in the past month and a half that I have no clue just how much we actually put up. Sufficed to say, Andrew had to build me a new shelf to hold it all. Yay for the need of a new shelf, and yay for my handy husband!  And now that the veggie/fruit canning is almost over,  get to prepare for hunting season! The plan this year is for me to go hunting for the first time and bring back a deer.  We shall see. I have no real problem with shooting  the thing, it's just the gutting it out that brings my gag reflex. I'm just trying to envision how cool I'll look in camo and blue latex gloves.  hmmm... I wonder if they make camo latex... I digress. For most people the hunting process ends when they drop the animal off for processing, but that's not so much the case in the Strong home.  For some reason we process our own. However, I'm hoping that this year we will take the burger to be processed. The steaks, roasts, and chops I don't mind handling.  And after that we plan to can a lot of burger and stew meat.  yum.  Hopefully this means I'll have less cooking to do in the winter.  :) Until that time, however, I plan to relax a bit and enjoy the "not canning" vibe floating through my house. 

Hopefully tomorrow will be a productive day for me and I'll be able to post something a little more pertinent. Especially in light of the unrest growing around us.

Peace to you all, in Jesus.

Shopping for Time

So, thanks to Ellen for suggesting the topics of preparedness and relationships. I started writing, and realized I have a TON to say!  It's gotten me rather bogged down and I was waiting to post something until I was finished with what I was working on.  Sorry.  It's probably going to be a two parter, and I'll just have to keep plodding along on it.

In the mean time, I wanted to share with you a book that I just finished called Shopping for Time: How to Do It All and Not Be Overwhelmed, by Carolyn Mahaney (wife of pastor/author C. J. Mahaney) and her three daughters. This book is significant in that, these days I rarely find time to finish a book.  I have quite a number of  wonderful and edifying books started, even half finished, but it's sadly unusual for me to actually finish a book at this stage of my life. But this book is different.  At just 94 pages, I decided I could push on through.  And has it ever been encouraging and instructive!

I realize that with a subtitle like How to Do It All and Not Be Overwhelmed, it might sound like a self-help book.  Rest assured, it's not so simple. With only six chapters and five main points, two of which being specifically focused on rising early and spending time in prayer, the guiding theme of the book is based on Ephesians 5:15-16- "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil."

While I often fail miserable at it, a personal goal of mine is to put relationships before tasks. Relationships is the secondary focus of this little rich little book.  Specifically, the authors (you never know just which one is writing when) suggest tools to help prioritize your relationships, God, husband, children, family, friendships, etc. and how to work at being intentional within each of those relationships so that you sow and reap the most from each.

While these relationships are to be our priority, it is easy to find the laundry creeping in the way of playing with my kids or calling a friend. Who wants to make dinner when you can plan Candy Land (again)? On their surface the mundane tasks of organizing the fridge, cleaning the bathroom, or vacuuming the living room for the second or third time in one day are not really tasks that inspire me to grow in godliness.  However, as is not unusual, a quote from C. S. Lewis was quite encouraging to me. "The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's "own" or "real" life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life-- the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one's "real life" is a phantom of one's own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it's hard to remember it all the time."  Ahhh. So true.  Should I not be thankful that I have a refrigerator full of (mostly) healthy food, indoor plumbing (unlike much of the developing world), and the blessing of children who just happen to crumb up the carpet?

I would be remiss if I did not mention perhaps the most indulgent and downright exciting suggestion the authors make: taking a personal retreat.  Ahhhh.  How glorious does that sound? A Personal. Retreat. I truly love to be with people, but my goodness, do I enjoy being alone! I fairly often have times when my husband and children are all out of the house, but this is the time when I run around trying to clean, or organize, or do any number of other busy works that scream for my attention. The Mahaneys actually suggest leaving your home for a 24 hour retreat to a hotel, or at least a few hours to a coffee shop (a few hourse just isn't long enough in my opinion) where you can first focus on prayer and reading, and then on prioritizing and organizing your life. I love it. The example they present is that of Jesus who often went away to pray and to be refreshed before he went back into ministry. It's not a matter of escaping life, it's a matter of being recharged and prepared for your life and ministry to your home and the people in it.  Oh how joyous! My husband has graciously agreed that this should happen, and I cannot wait till it can be arranged!

I will close with some of the Mahaney ladies' closing words. "In light of this wonderous gospel, the following exhortation from Philippians 1:27 is truly amazing. Here we are told to 'let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.' Isn't it mind-boggling... to consider that we who were once condemned sinners can now, by the grace of God, live a life worthy of the gospel? We don't evaluate our priorities, consider relationships, and simplify tasks merely to avoid being overwhelmed. We do it so that our manner of life would be worthy of the gospel. We do it because, by God's amazing grace, we can live a life worthy of the gospel."

Be encouraged today, as you seek to live a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called!

Wadda Ya Want?

There are just so many things that I want to get into this blog. But, where do I start?  Preparedness?  Faith? Relationships? Politics? Homeschooling? Parenting? Wifery? (Yeah, I know.  It's a funny word, but I swear it's a real word. Okay, so maybe urbandictionary.com isn't the most reliable source, but I am quite fine with their description-"A mature, homely (?), domestic, motherly and sexually attractive woman."  But I'm wondering why there's nothing in there about that husband part that makes you a wife... hmmm...) 

I realize that for now, the primary people who will be reading this blog are my friends and acquaintances. So, it's to you that I pose the question- Wadda ya wanna to talk about? What interests you?  I do not presume to have vast knowledge of any of these topics, but they are all things that are very important to me. They are things that I want to grow deeper in, or more proficient at, or (in the case of homeschooling) I've just stuck my toe in the water and would love some input from the others who are more proficient.

So, leave me a comment and let me know what you think.  Lets see where we go.

Red-Eye Canning

Canning season has begun! 

The mother of all pressure canners- Presto's 23 quart giant.

Some how I have managed to acquire not one, but two of the largest pressure canners on the market. The first I inherited from my grandmother, and the second a friend found at a garage sale for a mere five bucks.  New, these babies retail at about $120, and I have managed to put out only the cost of replacement parts. Such a sweet deal. 

We made these same pickles last year and they were amazing!

For some reason, I always end up starting this process much too late for common sense. It was around 9 pm this time. But, 12 quarts of pickles, 5 pints of green beans, and 6 pints of chicken stock isn't too horrible for five and a half hours, right?  It probably would have been an hour less, but being a novice at pressure canning has its disadvantages. Fortunately I already had a replacement gasket and once that was replaced things have been rolling along just fine.

Thankfully, my wonderful husband helped me with the pickles and got me started on the beans, and then it was off to bed for him since he has to work in the morning. 

It took forever to pressurize the cooker.  hopefully they're not mush...

Those poor green beans sat in boiling water for what seemed like forever while I figured out what was going on. I've always been rather reluctant to use the pressure canner for fear that it might blow up, causing one of those delightful geysers in my very own kitchen. I think I'd rather wait to visit Yellowstone for that geyser thing...  Fortunately, it's starting to sink in that familiarity is all it takes to not blow anything up with a pressure canner.

pickles- 12 quarts, green beans- 5 pints, chicken broth- 6 pints

The most exciting thing I tried this evening was my new Tattler lids. Who would have thought that somebody could make plastic reusable lids for canning jars?  Well, that's just what the Tattler people have done.  They've been in business for a couple of decades, and only now are many of their oldest customers starting to look for replacements for their Tattler lids.  From what I've read, these things just don't wear out. A little spendy up front, but well worth it if you can often enough.

Tattler  Reusable Canning Lids

And now, I am very thankful I took a nap today.  It is 3:40 in the morning, and I hear... my pillow... calli... zzzzzz

Small Beginnings

I've had this blog site for quite a few months, and have been too intimidated by it to do much with it.  For several years now I have watched as our economy, our society, and our world have run completely out of control and wished in my heart of hearts that I could do something to help other moms who are not unlike myself. It took me quite some time to accept the fact that all is not as it seems in our country. Things are not rosy.  Our economy is not turning up no matter how the media tries to spin it. At a time when our government should be putting itself on a fiscal diet it seems, rather, to be modeling itself after the likes of the New Jersey lady who wants to weigh a thousand pounds.

It seems like common sense to me that if the cost of living is going up and goods are becoming more scarce, then perhaps one should consider being physically prepared for such things. However, when I started educating myself on the topic of preparedness I was shocked by the amount of resistance I received from family and friends alike. To be perfectly honest, it makes me a little sad that when I start to tell someone something about being prepared for an economic down turn -  or even something as common as a natural disaster- I always feel the need to preface by denying that I own a tinfoil hat.

Aside from being mocked for thinking the economic failure of America is a real possibility, the second greatest resistance I've received is from people who believe that God doesn't expect us to prepare for disaster because he's going to take care of us. This concept has caused me no small amount of Bible, internet, and soul searching to conclude how God would have us prepare to care for our families, friends and neighbors. It was the scripture in Proverbs 21:20, from which I titled my blog, that really solidified in my mind the fact that being prepared is really a biblical concept. It is not a matter of resting on one's own strength and what you have done, but rather using the common sense that God gave you  and being prepared to be a blessing to your family, friends, and neighbors. Hopefully, as this blog grows I will be able to reach out to more than just my little sphere of influence to share with others how God would have us prepare for the brave new world ahead.