WHY BE PREPARED?

"This week, for the Preparedness Challenge, I _____________________..."

Thanks to Mama's Mission Blog (see my blog list, you all know about my challenges with linking) I found  this website: http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/  .  Each week the have a challenge where you list what you are doing to get prepared  for emergencies.
 Last week someone left a question in the comment box about why be prepared because all the work might be fruitless and were we just feeding into Glenn Beck's paranoia?  I'd like to answer these questions.

First, I've been canning and stocking up for emergencies since I married in 1978.  I don't think Glenn Beck was even old enough to have a career back then.  My mother always canned, and I'm sure generations before her  preserved their harvest also.  It just makes good sense financially to  grow and preserve your own food.  Period.  Even people that have known me for decades will say something snide about my canning and gardening, referring to  Mr. Beck or Chicken Little.  Back in the olden days it was considered a wise and thrifty thing to do, now it's ridiculed.

Secondly, this commenter asked what's the use, if like the people in Japan, a tsunami washes away your house and all of your emergency supplies with it? Well the tsunami didn't wash away all of the houses.  Maybe yours would have been spared, and your supplies could have helped those that were without.  I live in a safe area of the country.  We have no, earthquakes, hurricanes, or tsunamis, we rarely have tornadoes. But in the thirty plus years I've been married, twice a tornado has downed enough power lines to cause us to be without electricity for over five days.  We also had an ice storm that took down the electrical lines for three days. We live in snow country and often it is impossible to travel the 17 miles to the city to get food and trucks cannot make it to our little grocery store in the village. We used to live in an area that had a community well, on more than one occasion the well malfunctioned and we needed to boil our water and buy drinking water.  Wouldn't it have been nice to have had some kind of water filtration system?  We had to travel out of town to buy water because the shelves at our local grocery store were cleaned out.   All it takes is one small catastrophe, that probably won't even make the national news, for you to understand how nice it is to have a well-stocked pantry, kerosene lamps, a full tank of gas and an alternative way to heat your home and cook.  During those times, I've offered food and shelter for those that didn't plan for emergencies.  It is nice to be a helper rather than a victim. An emergency can arise, no matter how safe you think you are.

Also, there have been times, too numerous to count, where an unexpected emergency, such as a costly car repair or expensive medical bill have arisen.  It is nice to know that at least you don't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from because you have a well-stocked larder.  What about the rising cost of food and gasoline?  Do you see anything on the horizon that will make those costs go down?  I just saw a item on the news that the U.S. will be exporting 20% more food this year.  The  formula of supply and demand is a basic  economic truism.  Not to mention what rising costs in gasoline does to the cost of production, as well  as well as trucking it to the groceries stores.  A quote from the Bible:

²⁴ Four things on earth are small,
    yet they are extremely wise:
    ²⁵the ants are not a strong people,
    yet they store up their food in the summer;

~Proverbs 30:24-25~