Content...With So Much Less

Someone posted this webpage on Facebook and I found it quite fascinating.  It shows pictures of people and places during the Great Depression.  Even more fascinating to me was the following comment that someone left:

"Amazing, outstanding pictures! Although I grew up in the 50’s my family was so poor they lived in places much like some shown in these photos. My earliest memories include living in a tiny wood shack on an acreage, with up to 8 people at a time living in it. No electricity, phone, or plumbing. My mom hauled water from a well in summer, and melted snow in winter (on our wood stove) to get water. She re-made clothes for us kids out of others’ old castoffs, on a Singer sewing machine that ran by operating a foot pedal. We had a wood-burning heater in the living room to give us some warmth in the winters. We couldn’t afford toilet paper for our outhouse, and used others’ tossed out newspapers, or old catalogues, for paper. We ate supper by the light of oil lamps. There were two very tiny bedrooms in the shack, which my father turned into four by dividing the rooms with sheets of plywood. With two “beds” in each room,there was no room for much else. Most of our furniture was made out of old apple crates. My Mom did wash on a washboard and hung it on a line to dry. But, there was a lot of love there and we always had food on the table, no matter what. Thanks for the memories. Those were the happiest days of my life." Lois Hamlett, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

I don't know about you, but I was just amazed by that comment!  She gives the description of how she grew up as a poor person, and then goes on to say that those were the happiest days of her life.  Think of the details of her childhood, and then compare that to how the average person in America lives right now.  We have got it GOOD, and yet, so many people are not content in spite of that.  It is just crazy to me how much people expect these days...what they think they deserve (THAT is a entire topic for another post!)...and how they pout and complain when they don't get what they think they should.

God never promised we'd have whatever we want, and I don't think God wants us to want so many things.  The Bible promises us that we will have what we need.  Lois Hamlett, in the comment above, had her needs met, although it doesn't look like what most people think it should.

This post is linked up at:
Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways