In the Kitchen - Managing Abundance, Faith, and Gratitude

Yesterday I took stock of my pantry and my outside freezer.  It appears I have an abundance of frozen and canned healthy foods.  Here is the picture of my pantry, fashioned from an antique shoe shelf and placed in the basement where the air is the coolest and driest in house.   I wish I had one of those old cellars in my house that were designed for food storage and managed to stay really cool but the basement will have to do in the burbs.

We have homegrown tomatoes on top, in salsa and sauce, applesauce and sliced apples on the second shelf, applebutter and canned peaches on the third shelf and a few onions and potatoes hanging around.  Remember the 200 pounds of apples we put away from the neighbor's tree?  My plan to preserve them for the future worked well... there they are.

The freezer looks very similar.  There are pounds of black raspberries from the garden this summer, vegetables bought fresh on sale and ready to be cooked this winter, meat (soon to be a 1/4 grass fed beef joining the stock), frozen bananas, and some home made breads and leftover meals ready for re-heat.

Something about that pantry kind of bothers me....  there is too much there and I don't have a plan to use it! I think I am developing a food-hoarder mentality.  

The problem is not that I am stocked up for winter with an abundance of food.  The problem, I think, lies in my fear of SCARCITY that causes me to only look at that stocked up food and not use it in meals for my family.  It is as if I need to hoard it in case there comes a time when we "really need it".

Come on now, we live in the heart of the city, just less than a mile from a Fareway and a Whole Foods!  Do I fear we will experience an Iowa blizzard that will keep us from leaving the house for weeks, forced to live on applesauce?  Not really..  Do I fear we will lose our ability to pay for food at the grocery store and go hungry?  Not really.  What is it about that pantry and freezer that gives me solace in keeping it intact?  It just might be the mindset of scarcity that has kept me from enjoying this food and many other things in my life over the years.

Do you have a mindset of abundance or scarcity?  With FAITH comes relief of fear.  With faith all things are possible.  With faith and work, good things come in abundance IF you can identify what the good and important things really are.  There has been SO much abundance in our lives in the last few years, AFTER we both suffered through losing jobs, limited incomes, and fear of the unknown, which CHANGED the way we look at what we need versus what we want.

No matter what you put your faith into, whether it be the same God I trust, or another higher power of your choosing, you will have what you NEED when you need it but what you WANT might not be what you need, so you have to be willing to see the difference.  I have discovered joy and serenity when I "let go" and allow my needs to be met.. when I quit wanting things that are out of my reach at the moment..  when I quit trying to change others and just accept them for what they are.. when I work to change ONLY the way I view the world.. as a source of ABUNDANCE or SCARCITY.

What does this have to do with my pantry?  I think that pantry is a sign of many things, including the fact that with faith we will have what we need in an abundance that should invoke gratitude.  Maybe as important a lesson as that one, is the lesson of stewardship.. using your resources wisely.  Just as the old pioneers stocked their pantry all summer with the fruits of their labor, they did so with the intention of using that stock all winter, and with the faith that the next summer would bring more abundance.  I can't imagine the work involved those many years ago, or the real threats of scarcity they must have faced, or the FAITH they had to exercise in order to face every day's challenges.

Again, I am grateful for all the blessings associated with living in this world today.  I vow right now to use up the majority of this stockpiled food this winter to nourish us...  to continue exercising faith over fear.. and to continue to have a mindset of abundance over scarcity.