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It used to be that we’d “save for a rainy day” and hopefully have enough to see us through a tough period. Over time, however, we have victimized ourselves by spending, spending, spending, and acquiring, acquiring, acquiring. Come the time when a flood strikes or a lockdown puts us out of work, oops, what can we fall back upon? We spent what could have been our nest-egg.
Hear me correctly. As I mentioned at Thanksgiving time, I was born into a family that was doing very well—at least for my first 9 years of life. I was by then programmed to know what good things were—and I was imprinted with wanting those good things. However, dad and mom lost everything, and we “went without.”
One day, mom spoke to me and my brother and told us to be sensitive to dad. She said that when a dad loses his business, it can sometimes be fatal to his health (depression, heart, etc.). She said that we should be understanding and show our love and support for him.
Things never did return to “the good old days,” but as I told you at Thanksgiving, bacon and eggs for us that day was great. We no longer had the things we once had, but we had each other. I have a mature perspective on this period now–but at the time, all I knew was that mom and dad were great. What more did we really need?
So as we continue moving through this period of reduced activity, we might think of it from the “blessing” perspective. We’ve been stopped in our tracks to reconsider what we think is important. Maybe we haven’t previously brought to mind that our loved ones might be taken from us very quickly (as some in our faith community have experienced this year). Maybe we’ve been so busy accumulating things for ourselves and our castle that we haven’t been overly generous to aiding those in real need.
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