There have been lots of changes in our lives since we moved north last summer but it struck me how many of them are lifestyle changes.  In the past year we have started grinding grain for baking, giving the children supplements to boost their immune systems, taking fish oil ourselves, buying local farm-raised beef, maintaining a square-foot garden, using fabric necessities for momma, and we are currently considering a switch to cloth diapers. 

Wow!  Now, most folks would look at that list and think I'm a crunchy-granola-type-person (I do love granola but this is an affectionate phrase for people who are very concerned about the environment and such things) or the "super-homeschool-mom".  I'm really not nor is that my desire.  I'm the type of person who will recycle but sometimes throws things away because I'm too tired to walk to the garage, rinse the container, or breakdown the box.  So, don't be getting any big ideas about my "fairy-tale" life with a super eco-friendly green home.  Na.  Not happening here.

I didn't set-out to overhaul my family from the typical consumer to one with less of a "footprint" (is that what they call it).  I honestly was quite happy with the wheat flour I was buying to make our bread.  I was also quite content using my favorite disposable feminine products until I acquired a reaction to them.  No, these chages have mostly occurred in response to something in our lives that was the result of sin.  Sin came into the world through Adam and because of that everyone is affected by the results.  So, in some way the results of all the man-made chemicals and processes will cause a determential affect because what man makes is imperfect.  I'm not an alarmist but once I got thinking it through it struck me that if it doesn't come from God it isn't something that is perfectly made for us and may impact us in a negative way.   I'm also not someone who will ever switch to everything in our lives being organic or pure or natural or whatever.  But...

I'm a mom.  I want the best for my family.  I feel that my role as a wife and mom is to help my family be healthy and to make good choices that benefit the management of our home (relating to finances, use of resources, etc).  Each of our decisions to make the above listed changes came from a financial need or a health concern.  No, I'm not saving the planet but rather I'm looking out for my family and responding to a world that is contanimated with sin.  That contanimation affects our health, our finances, our relationships, and our emotions.  We are not of this world but we are in it.  Therefore, we need to deal with the affects of sin even if they are not our sins.