Be Prepared
Yes, my bent is towards being extremely organized, a Type A personality, and in some ways even obsessive compulsive. (The clothes in my closet are color coded.) God probably gave me six children to help me loosen up a bit. In the first five and half years of marriage we had four children in only three years. The first few years I would try to put their toys away every evening in a specific order on 3 shelves in a cabinet, but the time child #4 arrived I'd bought a large woven basket into which I just dumped all the toys!
Our laundry room system was quite organized! It was the old sleeping porch of our 1914 home, which we enclosed. We had a round table in the middle of the room on which all the folded clothes were placed. Then the children picked up their clothes and placed them on shelves and basket systems around the walls of the room. Everyone had 3 baskets...shoe, sock and underwear. Then you had two shelves, where you shirts, shorts, warmup pants, and long pants were folded. The five boys had hanging racks for their dress shirts, while our daughter and I hung our dresses in our bedroom closets. The laundry room was a hub of activity, but it worked so well!
I chuckle because to this day I know our children and in laws call me "Little Miss Pick Up". I drive them nuts grabbing their coffee cups and drink glassed and heading to the dishwasher with them before they are finished. But y'all, there are 26 of us now!
Another quirk of mine is leaving the house in good order when we head out of town in case the Lord calls us home while we are traveling. It will be traumatic enough for our children to have to deal with our deaths, who wants to come in to dirty laundry or dishes, an unmade bed or floors that need vacuuming! 😉 My poor pastor husband tolerates me taking the same attitude with church activities. "Let's leave things ready to go and make it easy in case we don't come back!"
I wrote this post at 5AM in a hotel room in Kentucky, where my husband and I were on a 3 day excursion (not a vacation) with four of our grandchildren to visit The Creation Museum and The Ark. I know I drove them nuts trying to keep them organized with their hats, gloves, coats, bathing suits, backpacks and multiple electronic devices and cords! I drove myself crazy.
As I was praying that particular morning, the Lord showed me where the strong tendency towards "being prepared" comes from and it offered me grace. Life offers up the unexpected. The times where the show stops and cannot go on. The Lord is with us in all these experiences, but it doesn't hurt having a "to go bag" you are able to grab when these things occur.
At sixteen years of age my grandfather was murdered, while my parents were in Europe. Eleven days later I found my grandmother dead from a heart attack. Giving birth six times I learned babies come when they want to, not in your timing. My brother drown and I had to leave five children and all their laundry in the care of friends while I flew to Florida. The deaths of my parents and in laws were cause for pause in life's routine, as was the tragic car accident of one of our sons who was flown to UVA with a broken neck. Add to that a very unexpected stroke, while I was baby sitting in Nashville, TN and what our little grandson endured in 2020 by being bitten by a copperhead and then four days later almost killed in our yard by a pit bull. I know all too well, life can change in an instance.
Of course COVID taught us all to have plenty of toilet paper on hand!
But the greatest preparedness is that of where we and those we love spend eternity. The Ark Encounter does an excellent job of showing how so many people we not prepared for the flood. We do not know the hour of Christ's return of the moment God will call us home, but God's Word tells us to be prepared to give an answer
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect...1 Peter 3:15
The Song
"Behold" by Phil Wickham and Anne Wilson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CP08HOcWGY
