Some things are nice to have again

I had a small moment of happiness the other day. After putting away the Halloween decorations, I got out the Thanksgiving stuff. It was easy to find this year because the holiday stuff is organized in the garage (we won't talk about the rest of the garage). When I placed the turkey and the pilgrims on the mantle, it was one of those satisfying moments in life. Last year when we were in the apartment, all of the holiday stuff was in the storage building. We found Halloween, Christmas, and Easter, but couldn't find Thanksgiving at all! At the time, I didn't miss it. But being able to find it this year and set out the pilgrims was pretty cool. It brought back memories of 2004 when we bought our house in Cordova. We had moved in the house in late September, so when autumn arrived, we went a little crazy at the Hobby Lobby (or Garden Ridge, I don't remember . . .) and bought a bunch of fall leaves, pumpkiny looking stuff, and this cute little pilgrim couple. It was the first time we'd ever had a mantle to decorate!

Anyway, I was also thinking about how fragile our creature comforts are becoming. I've been thinking a lot about if we became unemployed, how we'd pay for the house and stuff like that (I know, it's depressing isn't it?). Then I thought about if we became homeless, how bad things would be. That was when I really appreciated those little pilgrims. That's something I probably couldn't take with me if times got tough. I thought about the Pioneers and how precious few things they were able to transport across the plains, how they sold most of their valuables for a pittance just so they could buy the necessities for travel.

Well, I won't tell you about all of my other thoughts that day, but many of the thoughts creeped in because of the layoffs that occurred in my company last week, all around me, but skipping over me. I'll only say that in thinking about the worst case scenarios, it made me really appreciate what we have now and the way the Lord knows us, knows what we need, what we can handle, and He blesses us.