This year it has been very mild, temperatures above freezing in January, the flu season was here in January instead of April, not a normally winter at all. However God returned order in our section of the world and we received a normal snow storm. As the snow fell yesterday, last night and even this morning, God reminded me of some lessons that snow storms teach me.
1. There will be times in your life where you will get dumped on!
Go to bed, life is fine, wake up in the morning and you are covered. Death, Bills, Terminations, sickness, flu, theft, fire and flood, it can happen overnight. It would be OK if it just came in small doses but sometimes it comes in a good ole fashioned dumping. It won't stop, it won't quit, the snow machine of your life is blowing and there is no escape.
2. Just like snow is quiet when falling, many times your problems give you no advance notice!
My son woke up this morning and was amazed by how much snow had fallen overnight. He said, "I didn't hear nothing". Well that's snow! It's not a thunderstorm that will come with an announcement of boom and the fireworks of flash, snow is silent. Many of our problems are the same way. No boom, no flash, no warning, no announcement. We didn't see it coming! The job looked good, health seem fine, marriage seemed strong, car ran fine yesterday, them BAM here it comes.
3. When the snowstorm hits, you have to learn how to dig yourself out of your situation!
We can't control what life throws our way nor can we control how much will come. All we can do is when we get buried beneath our problems, our burdens, our bills, our heartaches and our headaches, we learn how to dig out.
When I was taking my son to school, when we opened the door, the entrance to the garage was filled with snow that had drifted up the wall of the garage creating a fort of snow blocking my way out. My son, ever the lazy young man, said "oh well, we are stuck, guess I am not going to school". I immediately handed a shovel in his hand and secured mine and said, Let's start digging.
Did we remove all of the snow? NO! Did we make a perfectly clean path? NO! What we did was dig a small passage so we could see, then another small passage so we could navigate, and then dug another passage so I could turn. Piece by piece, shovel by shovel, we dug our way out.
That is what you must do, when you get dumped on, DIG OUT. Don't hide in your bunker, don't stay secluded in your shelter, DIG OUT. Piece by piece, space by space, it will get better, it will become clear.
4. When you dig our, help someone else who is still stuck inside!
A youth minister by the name of Eric who at the time worked at the Granger Community Church taught me this principle. Last year during our record 38 inches of snow following in a 24 hour period, I watched him. He diligently and effortlessly cleaned off his driveway, then he went to his neighbor's house and cleaned their driveway off and then he went to another. His work ethic convicted me so I put on my boots and snow suit, grabbed my shovel and went to help.
I asked him why he was doing this for his neighbor. He told me I am originally from Florida. I had never seem snow like this. My first year, I was stuck, ill prepared to deal with what had hit me and God sent my neighbors to dig me out so now its my turn to help someone in need.
The miracle kept repeating itself! After a while. another neighbor came with a shovel and then another and another, all of us saw someone working and decided to come help. If God frees you from what was dumped on you, maybe you ought to go and help someone else dig out of what's been dumped on them.
Hope this helped someone, got my second wind, have some more shoveling to do here at the church.
Owens
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