Thankful Conservation

I know I am starting to sound like one of those tree-hugging California grown-girls who only wears Birkenstocks and belongs to the Sierra Club, but for the sake of posterity (I always feel like that word makes people seem so self-righteous) I am going to write this post anyways and expose my husband and I to any eye-rolling naysayers. Joseph brought home buckets today. "Buckets?", you say. Yep, buckets. California is in a massive drought right now. I read a statistic today that said that every minute we shower takes up four to six gallons of water. If we cut our daily shower by just one minute, we would save about 1500 gallons in a year. That is an eye-opener for me. Now, usually I am the kind of person that says, "Yeah, so what? I am one person and doing something like cutting down my shower time really isn't going to make an impact". You know what though, I'm done thinking that way. Whether or not it makes a large impact isn't the point. There is something to say about what I will call the spiritual discipline of "conservation". It may seem silly but I'm starting to think about some of the things I take for granted, like hot, free-flowing water, as a place where I am lacking knowledge of the Creator God in my life. Oddly enough, what really got Joseph and I thinking about this was our daughter, Mercy. She is really susceptible to diaper rash and even though we use cloth diapers and washable cloth wipes, it seems that she still has the rash. The only way to prevent it seems to be to wash her little bum under the water every time we change her diaper. For new parents, the thought of running our baby's little tush under ice-cold water is heart-breaking, so we've been running the water until it gets warm. However, in the meantime all of that cold water has just been washed down the drain. Thus, the buckets. Now we have one small bucket in each of our sinks (the bathroom and kitchen) and one larger bucket in the shower. Since we have a garden and a fair amount of flowers in the little yard surrounding our house, we can save the water to use for our plants. I also did a little shower experiment today and put the large bucket under the shower head while I bathed. It was amazing how much water I collected in just a five-minute shower! We'll probably put the buckets away when we have people over but it actually feels really good to be doing my "unimportant, not-going-to-make-a-difference part". I am seeing it as part of my daily observation and reminder of how much God provides for my family and how often it goes completely unnoticed. I am practicing the spiritual discipline of conservation. I am appreciating abundance in the midst of drought.