The Great Escape

It's been a strange winter in Central New York. We have escaped many of the crippling winter storms as they have amazingly dumped on the states south of us. ... Until the only day in a Central New York winter that I was to get a on a plane and head south for a few days of leisure.

I awoke to a beautiful landscape of freshly fallen snow. Surely three to four inches of white beauty would not cause my flight to be canceled!

Tuning in to the local news, I was greeted by reports of school closing after school closing after school closing. Any school I was aware of in all directions from our home was closed. A preemptive move, I reassured myself. A precautionary course of action in light of how snowfall south of us closed towns down. Surely this, in and of itself, was not enough to cause my flight to be canceled!

At work comments leaned to the negative, presumptions being that my flight could easily be canceled. Still, as I looked out the window I saw snow falling, but not a blizzard. My mantra continued: This was not enough to cause my flight to be canceled!

Leaving work an hour early to allow time for poor road conditions was the first slight admission to a possible problem. Still, I told myself, this was a precautionary action. I continued on with my plans on the premise that my flight was not yet canceled!

At the airport, waiting for my flight, the weather was beginning to deteriorate. The falling snow was turning to blizzard conditions. My husband faced poor driving conditions on his trip home.

Though my flight continued to stay listed as 'on time' on the flight board, flights around me were on, and suddenly off. If the weather would only continue to remain stable until we were up in the air flying high above the storm!

The weather conditions remained stable. My flight left on time with extra passengers on board, those passengers whose flights had been canceled and were looking for a different route towards home. Little did I know that I was getting out on one of the last flights before the worst of the storm dumped close to two feet of snow on central New York!

Ultimately arriving in sunny Florida I was greeted the next morning by news and photos from my family of two feet of snow in our driveway and of practically buried cars; of schools closed, not for precautionary measures, but because of roads still needing to be cleared of the massive snowfall; and of news reports of people being told to stay home and not to go to work.

Smiling from my sunny, snowless location, I thanked the Lord for holding off the storm until my flight left, for making my "Sister Weekend" a reality and allowing me to escape one of the year's worst winter storms!

Unwelcome Intruders

 

It was the voices suddenly lowered to a near whisper that caught my attention. In a house of rambunctious boys, whispers meant I needed to really pay attention.

Walking out of the office into the living room I was greeted by the sight portrayed in the picture above. The unwelcome visitor had found its way in through a screen torn the previous night by a cat refusing to stay outdoors.  Our eldest son stood poised, BB gun in hand, aiming at the unsuspecting intruder.

"Wouldn't it be wise to have a machete handy, just in case?" I asked as I scooped up our miniature doberman pincher in my arms, poised myself, but poised to make a mad dash for the bedroom if the snake moved from its perch.

They obliged my need for a back-up plan, but my fears were unwarranted. With machete at hand, Joe took the shot and the snake fell dead to the cement floor below. Another unwelcomed intruder disposed of.

Cash For Clunkers

Last year "Cash for Clunkers" was a big hit. If you took in your old clunker of a car you were promised credit towards a spanking new one! Not a bad deal...but there's a greater deal out there!

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 we read:

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

God has promised that at salvation we become a new creature (a new person!) in Christ. He doesn't just give us a credit towards becoming a new creature. He takes away the old clunker and GIVES us the new!  We don't have to pay a dime. It's all Him!

The government has offered a credit from the old towards the new! God has offered mankind a new and completely free replacement for the old! Which do you think is the better deal?

Navigating the Slippery Roads of Life

Driving to work on a snowy winter morning under slippery road conditions and poor visibility can be a challenge. Despite the beauty of large snowflakes falling around us, visibility can be impaired, our sight limited to close quarters, making driving a hazard. Slushy, slippery or icy road conditions add an extra challenge to the morning commute, a challenge that lacks any beauty to it.

Likewise, in life we face the challenge of navigating slushy, slippery or icy paths. Reaching a point of indecision or temptation in our lives, if relying on our own strength and not totally dependent on our Lord and Savior, we can find ourselves sliding out of control towards the ditch. We need to have the Lord at the wheel of our lives to navigate us through the slippery roads of our lives.

Similar to how beautiful large snowflakes can impair our visibility in driving, there can be snowflakes in our lives that in and of themselves are good, but that in excess can impair or completely obscure our direction and purpose. The individual snowflakes in our lives may not be great enough to  distract us from our purpose in life, but the accumulative effect can be enough to redirect us, possibly causing us to end up ditched and damaged. We need to guard our hearts and minds against even the good things in life if we find they are steering us away from an intimate relationship with our Lord and Savior. 

Let's drive defensively, remembering to keep the Lord at the wheel our life!