A blinding snow obscured the tracks in the road, making it nearly impossible to see much beyond my car’s headlights. The bloody knuckles of my right hand gripped the steering wheel tightly while my eyes focused on the single tire tread track upon which all hope of traction and forward progress existed. It had already been a little more challenging morning than one might hope for.
The car battery, now having weakened over several days while we waited for the maintenance department, fully booked, to allow an appointment, kept my life a little more on edge than usual. However, this particular day, it had bottomed out and the jump-start pack with it, leaving me the only recourse to attempt to pull the old truck up the hill on a precarious balancing act to get it barely close enough so that the jumper cables might reach. There, at the very last inch, they found their mark. However, even with the power of a running engine and the charging force behind it, the car remained hesitant to start. It was at this moment that I was reminded of how it was to laugh in the face of the storm. A smile came across my face as it became apparent that this would be one of those days. After a few minutes of reflection and prayer, it was with a questionable apprehension that I slid into the driver’s seat, stepped on the brake, and then, thinking of the Father, touched the ignition button. The comforting sound of an engine vigorously turning over rang like the peals of the church bells on Sunday morning.
The first verses that appeared to me upon finding my seat at the coffee shop were these from Psalm 139: “O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.”
May the Lord be with you as you find your way through the storms of life today, and be willing to even smile in the face of adversity should it come your way. And as always, “Thanks be to God.”
