Are You Prepared?

I’ve been receiving some very disturbing communications from other writers and correspondents, most of which I trashed and ignored; but the one I received this morning gave me pause to ask “Are You Prepared?” If you are a true Christian believer and have correctly studied the Holy Bible the answer should be yes; but are we?

I remember stories told to me by my grandparents before they passed on, of how they worked for pennies an hour, stood in food give away lines in the sweltering heat to receive food that wouldn’t even be enough to feed little children for a week. People passing out and some dieing of heart attacks while waiting in lines, some of which were so long they would run out of the rations before some even got there.

My grandmother like so many others washed clothes by hand for neighbors to make a little extra coin to buy a loaf of bread and flour and lived on “Country Gravy” made with water because milk was scarce and preciously needed for the children. She grew up in West Virginia and her first husband worked in the Coal Mines there. He died of a heart attack on his way to work near the end of the Great Depression and she left the state looking for a better way to raise her three children.

But she told me how everyone worked with their hands doing something whether caring for the elderly that couldn’t care for themselves, doing neighbors laundry, sewing clothes by hand because no one could afford to buy new ones, Baby Sitting for others while they worked, Darning and Knitting, Quilt making and so on. How many women retained that knowledge in order to do it today? How many women are willing to do it today in order to survive?

My grandmother use to tell me about neighbors that had been in their homes for years had grown their own gardens and would sell their excess to neighbors at a mere fraction of the cost of the stores so others had fresh vegetables and fruits to eat. She would also tell me how people bartered over skills; if a neighbor had a farm and needed some work done on a water pipe, for instance, they would agree on giving something from their farm in payment for the work done plus a meal during work. How many people have gardens around their homes or on their patios today? How many farms and ranches do we have that survived thus far?