“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.”

—1 Thessalonians 4 : 10 – 12

So much bad stuff is happening, all at the same time in our country, that we tend to be overwhelmed by it all. As if a devastating, health pandemic isn’t enough, we’ve been hit with an unprecedented, unemployment crisis and, on top of that, a heart-rending racial crisis that is rocking our country to the core.

There are no easy answers to these problems.

But, we can help one another get through this multi-faceted crisis. And, when things look as though they are out of our control, we don’t have to fold. We have each other, and we have God on our side. Adopting a positive attitude will help us survive the difficulties life throws at us.

The good news is that we’re not alone. Others have gone before us to show us the way.

The following story by Darlene is an example of how one family, that stuck together and put its faith in God, was able to pull through hard times such as these and survived to tell the tale.

“After four years of being duly sifted through the economic threshing machine, our family learned how to survive and even thrive in the lifestyle God has carved out for us in the wild woods of the Pacific Northwest.

We endured massive lay-offs, two new jobs, long-term family separations, real estate woes, and multiple moves. So, when we purchased some acreage and a roughed-in home, we counted chief among our blessings the fact that we were together under the same roof.

Well, actually at first we weren’t under the same roof because for a couple of months, my husband slept in the tool shed and our young son and I slept in the overhang of the horse trailer. But, we were together, and we learnt to manage. People always do.

God really worked on us. He changed our idea of what a person needs in order to be happy. We learned that enough is a good deal, and when you have one another, that is a blessing.

Our main “appliance” for nine months of the year is a wood cookstove. It is our sole heat source. I use it for all of our cooking needs, including percolating our coffee. While we do have a front-loading washing machine, we don’t have a functioning dryer, which means we stand our clothing racks beside and behind the cookstove to dry wintertime laundry.

Since we live well beyond the county’s official road maintenance zone, we are responsible for snow removal, not only for our driveway, but also for our share of the county road. After a nighttime storm, my husband gets up at 4:00AM to plow before he leaves for part-time work. If things get ugly during the day, I plow out a trail so he can return home that evening.

And bath time? If we want to soak in a tub, we do it when the weather is hot. Outside. When we bought this place, it was plumbed for a shower (in the garage of all places), but not really set up for a tub, so we do our splashing and soaking in a 100-gallon horse trough. We fill it by morning’s early light, and by sundown it’s warm enough for a bath. Not hot, mind you, but warm enough.

For us, a simple life has nothing at all to do with a cushy, sedentary life. No sir, no ma’am, quite to the contrary. But it does have to do with leading the life God has set before us, and getting on with it.

We’ve been threshed through the relocation machine. As a result, my family has gleaned an appreciation for one another, and for how God continues to provide for our most basic needs, and then some.

Life, we discovered, ain’t so bad after all.