{image via Found in Mom's Basement}
When my can of shaving creme sputtered and died, I had only finished lathering one of my legs. I was faced with a dilemma: do I get out of the shower and drip all over the floor whilst digging through the linen closet in search of another can? Or do I shrug, rinse, and spend the rest of the day with one leg smooth and one decidedly stubbled?
Knowing my luck, one stubbled leg would absolutely guarantee that my husband would be feeling amorous that night, and I would be left feeling pretty stupid. I got out of the shower, grabbed another can, and noted that I was then down to three. Time to go buy another Costco pack.....
Which has to be the strangest introduction to the topic of having a three-month supply that I have ever seen.
There was once a time when I never had a spare can of shaving creme. If I ran out, I'd just put it on the grocery list and pray that I remembered to actually grab the list when I went shopping. I routinely ran out of sugar, flour, and eggs. Then, about a year ago, Jared and I decided that we needed to follow the Prophet's counsel to build up our food storage. We liked the idea of having a three-month supply of things we use every day, as opposed to the {daunting} one year supply of dry goods in #10 cans a la The Dharma Initiative.
We started simply. If I had something on my grocery list, I would buy three of them instead of one. Three bottles of BBQ sauce. Three tubes of toothpaste. Three jars of jelly. Why then, was I so surprised when the grocery bill turned out to be nearly three times as high? I about died. I learned to stagger my purchases and build up slowly. I learned which things were worth buying at Costco {bulk, yes, but name brand bulk} and which things to buy at Walmart. I learned that in order to have a three-month supply of chocolate, I'd have to add another pantry to our house.
Mostly, I've learned that building and maintaining food storage is like so many aspects of obedience. It's a process. There is never a point where I can say, "I'm done! I've made it!" I'm constantly rotating it, constantly buying twenty cans of soup at a time. And contrary to my expectations, having a supply doesn't make me feel invincible to hardship. If anything, I'm acutely aware of the fact that what we have is purely a gift from Heavenly Father, that anything could happen at any time. {Although if the world ends, all that chocolate and shaving creme will be better than gold, let me tell ya.}
I've come to see that even if we never have to rely on this stockpile of food and supplies, our efforts won't be for naught. The very act of obedience has become something sacred to me. It's but a small offering of thanks, a sign of my gratitude for all the tender mercies in my life. I've learned that the more I strive to do as I'm asked, the more I desire to do all that I'm asked.
Now I'm off to buy diapers and condoms. What, you don't have that in your three-month supply?
