I love books, so maybe it would be sad to live without them, but I would survive the loss. Even though I try to remember my smartphone when I leave the house, I find that I can go days without thinking of it, which is why it has to be found a lot. We lived without them for over a century, so the smartphone wouldn’t count as a must-have. Indeed, as someone raised without a lot of things that people believe are important today, like three bedrooms or two bathrooms, I have learned that other than food, water, air, and my pacemaker, which my body needs to survive, there isn’t anything that I couldn’t live without.
When you are poor, you learn to improvise, for necessity is still the mother of invention. When I walk into stores, I see items that I don’t even know what they do. I am stunned at the number of kitchen items for making coffee, tea, bread, and other food that a simple spoon, knife, and fork could do and save space on the kitchen counter. Is it that we feel more secure with a lot of things, even when we don’t use them but once or twice?
I am grateful to be able to buy books, live in a wonderful house, and drive a nice car. But, I would live if I lost it, because I spent a lot of early life without either of them. Once when I was teaching a Sunday School class of teenagers, I told my students about living in a three-room apartment. One young women raised her hand and said, “Sister Regina, you mean three bedrooms.” She was appalled when I told her that you could shoot from the living room to the back door without hitting a wall. So, this is a great question, but believe me, there are many things you can without
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Help from Heaven 
So true Regina. We have made these things as absolute necessities of life.
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True. However, my daughter came face to face with losing everything. Her apartment building in Altadena burned to the ground in January. Thank God she is okay, but I can see how disorienting it is to suddenly have nothing. All of a person’s personal things are gone. No cooking utensils, no personal hygiene products, all the cute cards saved from family and friends, favorite books, etc. I don’t wish that on anyone, but I wonder how I would do in the same boat. May we never have to experience that. Hopefully, my hope and life is in the Lord God alone.
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I am so sorry about your daughter and others who lost everything in the fires. I can’t imagine the pain. Our hope is in the Lord God alone. I hope that the government will help people get on their feet again, but I know that the Lord is still a miracle worker.
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For most of my life, I couldn’t afford to buy books except at yard sales where they were 50 cents or less. I made weekly trips to the library with my children. Free public libraries are a treasure–we must make sure they stay open.
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