It seems that with suggestions of panic, rationing, food shortages, intermingling with war, politics, etc. resounding through news, the interest in being prepared is once again on the rise.
Having taught preparedness and written many books about it, I have a firm belief that your faith is one of the prime factors allowing you to succeed … or not.
Since many of you may not know me very well yet, it is important for you to understand where I am coming from as I voice opinions and teach preparedness principles and concepts through my blogs.
As you read these blogs and evaluate some of the suggestions you must keep in mind that being able to care for my family at all times and in all situations may have warped my perspective somewhat.
For many years we didn’t always have the funds or facilities to have the ideal products or pantry. Through the years faith and desperation have combined to persuade me that I could find pantry space, and I could make it work, no matter what the proper storage rules said should or shouldn’t work. I learned that if I had enough faith I could bend the rules to make what I had to work with function – even thought they said it shouldn’t have.
Should you mistakenly think it was all coincidence or luck, I need to share an underlying belief. We prayed over our meager home storage a lot. We gave thanks that we had it and then prayed it would be protected and we wouldn’t lose it. And then we prayed to be able to find the ways to stretch our meager funds to be able to obtain more. You see most of the time (for a long time) our preparedness was sort of seasonal. The season being that there was a paycheck coming.
Always trying to better our situation, we moved a lot. Many times due to less than ideal pantry conditions our supplies fried in the summer and froze in the winter. Once after a hurricane (in Utah!), we tracked down our storage and the shed it had been stored in. We found it down the street in a neighbors yard. And then we prayed some more. In fact, we prayed for our “survival” year round.
One year, we moved back to California, after having moved to Utah. Our preparedness supplies, always a priority, were moved as well. It had been several years of preparedness supplies being stashed in those less than perfect pantry conditions. It was now time to unpack our supplies and put them away on shelves Larry had just finished constructing in the garage. It was my intent to sort and discard much of it, because, “after all it wouldn’t be good. How could it have survived through such instability and extreme temperature fluctuations?” I sat on our garage floor and cried. Not tears of frustration, but tears of gratitude! Very little had to be discarded, including hundreds of quart bottles filled with home canned fruit that were not broken.
Therefore, one of my personal guidelines, that I’m willing to share, is that not only do you do the best you can with what you have, you allow the Lord to help!
With that foundation you will discover in future blogs more details and attention given to those pantry ideas and areas that might not be considered “traditional pantry space.”
I share these thoughts and experiences to encourage you as the news continues to drone on in negativity. You can continue in a positive way – even if you think that your “funds or facilities” are not ideal.
President Gordon B. Hinckley counseled, “Begin in a small way …and gradually build toward a reasonable objective.” (To the Men of the Priesthood, the Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2002, 58)
As you assess what to do and how, remember to include Heavenly Father in your plans and projections!
