An HGTV Appetite - On A Thrift Shop Budget

Have you ever browsed through a magazine, department store or web site and found yourself  "wishing"? Because we are so blessed in our country with material abundance, it's very easy to become dissatisfied with just our basic needs being supplied.  Instead of having a comfortable chair to sit in, we soon feel the need to have a whole set of furniture that matches that one, comfortable chair.  More is perceived as better and having our "satisfaction guaranteed" has now become an expected right.

But the Bible says, "Let your conversation be without covetousness: and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

The opulence of our culture has not produced a happier society.  If anything…we are less content in our materialism and people turn to stimulants of every kind to boost their "happiness endorphins"!  For a Godly wife and keeper of the home, be careful to keep a close track of where your material "appetite" is leading you. Did you know that you can become addicted to shopping?  Just browsing through a catalog or strolling the aisles of your favorite store, may be hazardous to your family's financial health!  Just because "stuff" is available doesn't mean it is good for us or even necessary for life and happiness.

Several years ago, I did a personal experiment with myself.  I've never been a window shopper or one who walks through a mall just for the fun of it.  I've always been a ---- go get what you need and get out, kind of shopper. At the time, I found that I was enjoying more and more, the programming of HGTV…better known as Home and Garden Television.  My husband facetiously refers to it as, "As The Paint Dries" channel.  He doesn't necessarily see any value in the programs offered there.  I like it and justified my watching it from time to time, as educational in nature.  I did learn a lot each time I watched it, but over the months I noticed something else happening to me.

My eye was affecting my heart.

Desires to change things in my home, redo the old and bring in something new, was growing in my heart! The problem?  I couldn't afford to do anything about it at the time.  Frustration and dissatisfaction began to creep in. Don't get me wrong.  There is a place in life for making needed changes in our homes and for learning how to decorate, how to put colors together and how to place furniture in a floor plan. 

But that can't be what I'm all about or what I live for!

I'm a wife who must live within a budget provided by my hardworking husband and I am not free to buy whatever my eyes see or my heart desires.  There are times when even the smallest purchase can be wrong…because----you can't afford it!  Accept the fact that you must live on a thrift store budget.  Be content in that! There may be some months when you can't even afford to shop on a thrift store budget!  Will you still be happy?  Can you still be happy?

Contentment comes from within and as Biblical helpmeets, it is our responsibility to nurture a contented heart. Let it be seen and felt by your husband and children.  Set your eyes and your heart on the eternal… those things that will really last forever. 

Lamentations 3:51 "Mine eye affecteth mine heart because of all the daughters of my city." 

What the prophet Jeremiah was seeing, in the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, was having a profound affect on his feelings.  He was in great sorrow of heart.  We need to be careful about the things our eyes see!  Because what we see does affect our emotions and desires, and influences what we think.    Proverbs 23:7 states this to be true.

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…" 

Be content with your Thrift Store lifestyle and count your blessings if the Lord gives you more!