Sunday, December 15, 2013

A Retreat Arranged by God

Snow days weren't a big deal when I was a kid.  Unless there was a sheet of ice on the roads, we just carried on.  Since I was an only child and we lived in the country, getting time off from school wasn't that exciting.  There weren't any other kids nearby and it was a time before television.

Later when my kids were home from school because of snow, I either had to go to work anyway or we found ways to entertain ourselves.  But it didn't really seem like a vacation.

In most recent years, I usually just carry on.  Unless there's a bunch of ice.  In my mind, it's more than a little bit wimpy to let snow scare you.  I've got front wheel drive on my car and I just carry on.

Last week when we had the blizzard of 2013, and the local stations were going on and on about the snow (we had four whole inches), it suddenly occurred to me that I could take a snow day.  I hadn't realized it before but God was giving me a gift - I could just check out of life until a melt!

It's probably just the stage of life I'm in, but I've been noticing that I enjoy quiet more than I ever have in my life.  Sometimes I feel like I'm recovering from a lifetime of scurrying around from this to that, in a noisy world, trying to stay out of trouble with other people. 

A blanket of white silence outside, the bright white light from the white outside coming through my windows had the unusual effect of quieting my mind and body.  I ate, slept, prayed, sat and thought, listened to music and read Winnie the Pooh.  When the melt came, I wasn't quite ready and so pretended to be snowed in for a couple more days.

1 comment:

Eric Wayne Mix, DO said...

Beautiful! :-))

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