What Can I Live Without?

This last week has been a tough lesson in what I things I truly need. It seems every day something broke. First, it was my husband’s laptop. Then, the ceiling fan in the living room stopped working. The hot water valve in the guest bath clogged with sediment and there isn’t any hot water for the tub. The garbage disposal is making an awful ruckus and we’re afraid to use it. The tailgate on our pickup truck broke and we can’t open it. One of the automatic sprinklers isn’t working right.

The final straw: the coffee maker quit. I must admit I felt disheartened and started worrying about what else was going to go wrong, and how in the world we would manage to fix everything now that we are both retired.

We sat down and made a list of what needs to be fix now, and what can wait. In truth, none of it is urgent, except the tailgate on the truck.

We did, however, do some research on how to repair each item and found fixes for some. A system reset repaired my husband’s laptop. A YouTube video showed my husband how to fix the truck's tailgate. The parts were only $40.00.

As for the rest, we have time. We are heading into cooler weather and won’t need the ceiling fan until next summer. We have five months before we expect guests who would use the tub in the guest bath. The sink has hot water and so we’ll manage. We can live without a garbage disposal until we have the extra funds to replace it. The watering season is coming to an end so the sprinkler system can wait until spring. 

As for the coffee pot, we thought about using the one from the RV until we can afford another. However, after some thought, we decided we didn't need an expensive brewer with all kinds of bells and whistles. With just the two of us, we don't need a big one either. We found a small 5 cup brewer, with just one button to turn it on, $14.99 at WalMart. 

Most of these things are only conveniences we have become accustomed to, not things we need to survive. A roof, heat, food, and clothing are far more important. We have those things. 

The next day my devotional, Good Morning, Lord by Joseph T. Sullivan had this: “We think we can’t live without something. You’re the only one, Lord, we can’t do without.”

Every time I look at our little coffee pot I will remember that only a few things are really important, with God topping them all, because without Him we would not have life.