Our family spent the month of May in Mexico. We traveled light. I packed a blue blazer and kaki slacks, some dress shirts and work clothes. When we returned from Mexico we were to report to Nashville and then go through Ft. Wayne, Indiana to perform a wedding before returning home. I didn’t have a suit for the wedding but I didn’t want to have to carry one all over Mexico. I hoped that a blazer would do.
The night of the rehearsal I regretted by decision and whished I had a suit to wear to preach the wedding. In the morning of the wedding I went for a cup of coffee. Next door to the hotel was a large Salvation Army Thrift Store. I had an idea. I slipped in quickly walked to a rack containing a few suits. I picked up a double breasted suit with a classic black and gray check pattern in the fabric.
I went into the dressing room and tried it on. It fit almost perfectly, a little snug at the waist but nothing a couple of months of running wouldn’t cure. I left it on, picked up a striped tie to go with it for fifty cents. Since I was already wearing a white dress shirt I left the suit and tie on, walked out of the dressing room and up to the check out counter. I pulled the tags off the clothes, paid for them and walked out dressed for the wedding in a suit and tie for ten dollars. No one knew that I bought the whole outfit for about a third of the price of a good tie.
This morning out on the back steps I was reading my Bible and thinking about the freedom and simplicity of contentment. I think It was my boss or someone under his influence who once wrote this definition of contentment; “Contentment is realizing God has already given me everything I need for my present happiness.”
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Heb 13:5 ESV)
Ken Pierpont
Camp Barakel
Fairview in Northeastern Michigan
Monday July 17, 2006
What a wonderful story! 🙂