Reducing What We Throw Away is Part of My Faith

By Becky Showalter

This week, our family had our third week in the last three months that we didn’t put the trash bin out to the road because there wasn’t any!  Yes, there was a little bit of trash in the trash cans in the house but nothing in the big bin!  Wow!  Two years ago, I wouldn’t have even known it was possible!  Dargan inspired me with her Sunday School class on reducing waste and I remember thinking that THIS was the next step in God’s call to me to treat the earth with more reverence.  THIS was something that I could do!  With so many things that I do not directly control . . . Duke Energy, government policy, the behavior of world leaders . . . this, this could be a way of living out MY call to care for creation!  Is our family perfect at it? No, but we keep trying . . . and isn’t that all God has ever asked us to do?