Prepare Your Heart and Home for Any Crisis

Are you prepared for a crisis? In Kathi Lipp’s book, Ready for Anything, she shares practical steps to preparing your family and home for any disaster, big or small. We can’t control or foresee when a crisis is about to happen, and being prepared can not only benefit our households, but can also make us better neighbors. With Kathi’s guide, you will find humor, stories, lists and helpful tips to help you be better prepared.

You write about getting 3-2-3. Will you explain what that is? 

This is based on Red Cross and CDC guidelines. Every American should have three-day bag packed. This is if you had to leave the house in the emergency, if there was a fire or earthquake and services were down, whatever the circumstance, you'd be ready for three days on the road. Then the 2 is 2 weeks’ worth of food and water. And then the final 3 is 3 months of emergency finances, because almost any emergency you're going to experience is going to impact your job. 

For people who are underprepared and a little overwhelmed, what are some small steps they could take toward becoming more prepared? 

Under normal circumstances, my first piece of advice is to get $100 bills and a container to store water. Those are things that you can do that are very easy. They're going to help in so many different kinds of emergencies because in a lot of emergencies, clean water is such a problem. 

And declutter because in an emergency you want to be able to find your first aid kit, your flashlight, and you want to be able to find all your things. And so by decluttering your space, you are going a long way to helping stay organized on top of that. 

It's the common-sense things. Do you have a first aid kit? If notm at this point I would say if you can’t afford it, see what you already have at your house that you can put together all in one space. If you go to the American Red Cross website, you'll be able to see a list. If you just Google “Red Cross first aid kit,” you'll see a list of everything you need in there. 

Does being prepared mean that we don’t trust God? 

I actually leaned that way [for a while]. At least me, it was an excuse because I was overwhelmed by the idea of preparing and it was just easier to have a default, just trust God. 

But here's where I feel like that argument falls down: God's never asked us to live like that. God has asked us to prepare like the ant and to make sure that we are able to take care of not only ourselves but our neighbors. And so if I am going to prepare to take care of my neighbor, I need to be prepared to take care of myself as well. Instead of being overwhelmed, just be more prepared today than you were yesterday. Order the first aid kit or buy a couple of extra cans of food that you're not planning on eating right away. What this does is it says, “I am just doing a little bit at a time, I don't have to be overwhelmed, but I am more prepared than I was yesterday.”

How can somebody know if they're acting out of fear rather than a place of trusting in God?

Where is your focus? If your focus is “I want to take care of myself so that I can continue to serve God, serve my neighbor, serve my family,” then that's a healthy place to be at. I think where our heart is determines whether we're acting out of a state of fear. Fear is the idea of stockpiling, of saying, “I want to win.” But a heart of faith says, “I have enough and I'm willing to share because I believe that God will provide, I don't know what that looks like, but I believe that God will provide.”

How can preparedness make us better neighbors? 

God has given us a mind of creativity. How can I serve my neighbor? We've got a list from one of our neighbors and we order her groceries online for her because it's a little too complicated for her [to go out] and I can do that for her. If you are in a low risk category and you're taking all the precautions to go get groceries, I think that's amazing. And if you're out there mowing the lawn, mow your neighbor's lawn as well. 

I just think there are little things that we can do. It doesn't have to be huge. Most of us are not first responders out there saving lives, but things like, can I take your dog for a walk? Can I pick up groceries? Can I mow your lawn? Even just a phone call to say, “Hey, thinking of you, how are you doing?” We help people figure out the technology hurdles that some older people have been frustrated with. And we are able to connect better and deeper way. 

Click here to purchase Ready for Anything.

Kathi Lipp offers free resources to help you be more prepared, including inventory sheets, a printable meal planner, and the first chapter of her book. Find those free resources here.