For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 1 Timothy 6:7-8 (NIV)
If I am what I eat, today, I am cheese, crackers, an apple, a cup of yogurt, a bag of coconut M&Ms, bagel chips, Mississippi mud cake, pork tenderloin, garlic wild rice and mixed vegetables with asparagus. And water, lots of water. I’m half wise choices and half bad choices. Half nutritious and half too sweet. I started out well, then, it all went downhill. The refrigerator at work is chock full of leftovers from Tuesday’s party. The fridge is an old fashioned one from the 1950s. Though it is almost the size of a modern refrigerator, it only has a teeny tiny freezer just big enough for a couple of ice trays (remember those?) and maybe one small carton of ice cream. It makes me wonder what people did when they couldn’t buy a week’s worth of meat and put it in the freezer. Multiple trips to the market, I suppose. There’s no crisper or lunch meat drawer either. In those days you bought everything fresh, unlike the way I do shopping once a week and bringing home a loaded cartful. Sometimes on grocery day, I have to put half what I buy in the refrigerator in our garage. Yes, we have two, but my two won’t even equal the one my friend has. She has the world’s best refrigerator. I have already warned husband that when ours dies, I want one like hers. It is huge and so tall, we would have to remove the cabinets above the space where our refrigerator goes. The best part is that the freezer is in the bottom of the fridge and is big enough to hold a whole side of beef. I would only have to go the grocery store once a month with a fridge like that. I’m stuck with ours, but someday, I want one like my friend’s. Funny how our wants change isn’t it? While I don’t particularly care for the rust that covers the outside of our fridge, it was adequate until I saw my friend’s. For that matter, the antique one at work does the job of keeping food cold. When did our world change that we thought refrigerators had to be ice makers, water dispensers and freezers, too? In the farmhouse at the historical park that I help manage, there is no fridge. They used a screened cabinet on the back porch to keep milk and butter cool for a day which was all it would last. Little did they know that someday houses would have electric refrigerators bigger than their pantry and that people would stand in front of it peering inside and complain that there was nothing to eat. We always want more and so easily switch from needs to wants that we no longer recognize our dissatisfaction. Though I’m happy I don’t have to milk a cow every morning, I pray God teaches me to learn to be content with only what I need. That goes for what I eat as well.
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