Unpreparedness
We had high winds all day yesterday and then during supper our power went out. Now I do have sense enough to keep plenty of candles and food and drinking water on hand in case of emergencies, and we have a propane-burning heating stove with a smallish cooktop, so heat is not really a problem, but living so far out has means that I need to expand my preparations in other ways. In the city when you lose power, you still have tap water, for instance. Out here, on well water that has an electric pump and no way to draw water by hand, when the power goes, the water goes too.

So last night we had very very little water for washing up. I did the best I could and then we all went to bed. That's one nice thing about being without power - there's just not much to do after dark to distract you from a reasonable bedtime. Well, we had all the kids tucked in and the power came back on, so we fill up several more containers of water in case it went out again, and one older kid got back up and took her usual bedtime shower. We got the breakfast porridge started, which I hadn't done earlier since I didn't want to open the fridge to get the buttermilk out. Turned the heat up a little higher than usual (just in case) and went to bed again.

The wind was still pretty high and I fell asleep listening to it roaring through the treetops and praying the Lord would protect us. The power went out again sometime during the night, so this morning I cooked the porridge on the gas stove and started a kettle of water for coffee.

My Sunday mornings tend to be pretty rushed. It seems like I always have one more thing to iron, and the morning bathers always seem to take longer than usual on Sunday. I know that's not really the case - it just seems that way since Sunday morning is the only morning of the week where I have a definite deadline for Getting Things Done. Naturally, this morning everything really did take longer than usual, and we missed church.

So I have two areas of "preparedness" I need to work on - washing water and that kind of thing is one, but the most important is something that I have a really hard time with anyway, and it's a sin problem plain and simple. God's Word says, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God... (Ex. 20 8-10)" The first part of that is a pleasure to keep, but the second part - Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work - oh boy, do I need to work on that!