The Essentials (07/13/2025)

Terrible storms were coming to Wisconsin. I’d heard they were going to be bad from others I had talked to that day and earlier in the week. At 6:00 the alerts started popping up on the The Essentials (07/13/2025)

Terrible storms were coming to Wisconsin. I’d heard they were going to be bad from others I had talked to that day and earlier in the week. At 6:00 the alerts started popping up on the television every three minutes. Then the tornado siren went off in our town. I looked at the radar on my phone, it looked like we were in for severe weather. So, I told my husband to get his wallet (he usually has left it somewhere) and I got my purse and set them on the counter in the event we needed to go to the basement in a hurry. My husband asked why these things.

I explained that we needed the essentials only. If our home was hit by a tornado or debris from a tornado, we would need our identification and our credit cards. He sorta laughed at me. But he did do what I suggested. Turned out that we didn’t get any extreme weather, it went around us. But we were prepared.

Before I went to bed, I sat with the LORD in appreciation for not having storms and damage. I thought of the good people of Texas and the terrible situation there after storms and flash flooding. I prayed for them, for the victims of the flood, for the rescuers, for the families of both.

Then I thought about my answer to my husband as to why he needed his wallet. I told him he needed “the essentials.” My thought was that the most essential thing was our safety and the less we carried with us, the more apt we were to make it to the basement and safety without incident. And we needed the means to “start over” which included being able to pay our way.

And my mind took a turn, right out there on the porch, I realized that the LORD gives me the option to “start over” always. The LORD is merciful. The LORD is forgiving. There is no need for coinage or currency in the LORD’s scheme of things. But the LORD does ask that we prove ourselves through our love – love of the LORD and love for one another. Those are the essentials of faith. I thought of Jesus’ instructions to the disciples when He sent them out. They weren’t to pack a lot of things for their journey. Their love for the LORD, their good will toward the people, and their message were pretty much all Jesus spoke to them about.

The news of the week and the persistence of the weather service caused me to consider “the essentials” in my life. It wasn’t a bad exercise; in fact, I am grateful for it. While I would miss some of the pieces of my life that dot our home, my husband and I are “the essentials.” Starting over isn’t easy, but one must survive to start over. But then I realized that there is more. The most essential of all is our acknowledging love for our LORD, our recognition of Jesus as Son of God, and our living this love daily through our treatment of our sisters and brothers.

If you knew there was a possibility that you would lose most everything tangible, what would you grab to carry with you to safety? What are your essentials?

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.