" I Want That Too "

This is not a post I really want to write.  I know it will resonate with some and perhaps make others feel uncomfortable, which I dislike doing but that small still voice kept telling me to write about this yesterday and I ignored it, and so first this morning I heard that same still voice telling me again to write about this subject, I knew it must be done.  Not for anyone other than myself perhaps.  For this is a lesson for me.
Recently someone told me about a web page where you pin things that you want, or are interested in on a virtual corkboard of sorts.  So I went there, signed up and felt an overwhelming sense of thousands of folks saying, "I want that too".   It reminded me of the fleeting want I have from time to time for a new stove, you know the kind, stainless steel, lots of burners, commercial looking.   I have no idea why I want one, my stove is fairly new,  it works wonderfully.  Burners easy to control.  Oven temperatures are rigth on target.  Oven is big.  It is not the stove that makes the food anyway.  It's my hand that stirs the pots, puts the ingredients in.  But, the stove is "white" of all things !  The home channel tells me white is outdated, even though the stove is only a few years old and works fine.  The magazines and this pin board thing, all tell me that a good kitchen cannot have white appliances, they need to be stainless steel.   So, even if the thought is fleeting, almost always brought back down to reason when I take the time to look at it, the thought arises from time to time.   Then I see Julia Child on her cooking show, making masterpieces on this horrid looking green electric cook top and I understand, the stove has little to do with the quality of the cooking.  I think of the amazing food cooked on an old wood heat cookstove in many a plain kitchen and I realize rather simply that these "I want that too" thoughts are honestly nothing more than covetousness.  Ouch, such a strong word.  We like to soften the idea of coveting by calling it by some other name.    But the facts are plain, when we don't need something,  just want what others have, it is coveting.  
Exodus 20:17 spells it out quite plainly....
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Romans 7:7
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”
Websters dictonary gives some examples of how to use the word covet and its pretty plain, wanting what someone else has or wanting something in a showroom fits the bill.
How do we all get off the hamster wheel of wanting more than what we need ?  How do we learn to be content with what we have if it still works fine ?  How do we stop ourselves from trying to convince ourselves that we need what we simply are just wanting to have ?   An easy way would be to stop looking at the shows, the blogs, the stores, the magazines, the virtualy pin boards and look only at the things we need, honestly NEED.  One more aspect of coveting,  don't try to look like that airbrushed 25 year old in the magazine when you are 55 and don't try to be a size 2 when your body shape would never allow for that without becoming unhealthy.    Don't wish your husband was like the man in the novel you just read, just love the man you fell in love with to start with.   Don't try to make your children like someone elses children.  Love and train them up to live a life of happiness and contentment.   You know I am preaching to myself.  I am not overly covetous, but I have my moments and those moments, even if only fleeting, can make you feel discontent.
One other fact regarding this matter, the stores will not suffer if we only shop for what we need.  There are always needs arising.

our daughter Melissa when she was a young teen, holding some rabbits she raised