Snow Days

What a crazy week!  The Super Bowl was not a particularly exciting game since the Seattle Seahawks were in the lead from the beginning and never waivered (or so I was told since I was one of the few people in the world that did not watch it).  Then a somewhat unexpected storm settled upon us Sunday night into Monday night causing yet another snow day and schools closed.  We barely got cleaned up from that storm when we were walloped again with a major snow, sleet, and freezing rain storm on Wednesday that not only caused the schools to be closed but much of our state.  Our children will be going to school till July the rate the schools need to close due to the weather! 

Like everyone else I made a trip to the grocery store on both evenings prior to the storms.  Why is it that I feel the need to get to the grocery store just before snow starts to fall, even though my refrigerator and pantry are full?   By the way, there are still some canned goods in my pantry that I purchased when Hurricane Sandy came through!  Am I really just getting prepared to be homebound for several days (which has never happened) or am I psychologically preparing myself for something much worse?  Maybe deep down I do think the end of the world is actually coming and I need to hoard enough food until the second coming.  Do I have an unreasonable fear that I will not be plowed out for days and will be left alone to care for my youngest daughter, my dogs, and my cat?  And I know that I am not the only one who thinks this way, since the lines at the Village Market on the eve of a snowstorm are long with grocery carts filled with milk, bread, and chips.   Surely, we can’t all be out of milk and bread at the same time!

Perhaps this anxiety of being cut off from everyone for days and having to fend for ourselves is indicative of how we sometimes see God in our lives.   Maybe we have a dread that we might be cut off from God because of stormy times or challenges in our lives.  Sometimes we do the severing ourselves, since God does not seem to be present to fix a difficult situation or event as we think it should be.  And there are times when we load up the “pantry of our souls” with unnecessary items, thinking that we can remove our fears and concerns with stuff that does not provide what God offers us freely, namely his unconditional love.  Sometimes, we fill up our lives with so many things that we lose sight of the fact that God is always present and will never desert us.  Perhaps we need to shovel away those ideas that keep us from remembering that God will never abandon us and that he sees each of us as his beloved.  Now that is a great way to spend a snow day!

Mary Grace+