December 2008 - Moving in the Storm

Here in the Northwest of the United States, we always dream of a white Christmas but it's extremely rare we ever get one. Then, a week and a half before Christmas, the forecast for the coming days called for snow. Many were excited, we hardly ever get snow this early in the winter season! A week and a half later, we were singing a different tune. Gone was "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" for we had all forgotten what that entails. First the snow came turning everything white and slippery, then the freezing rain that made the whole world one giant ice cube, then the snow again, and finally it all froze over once more into ice before the rains finally came back and all the snow and ice is melting away. (I've never been so happy to see rain in the forecast.) It will take a while for the banks of snow to clear, some are still pretty high where it was pushed off of sidewalks and parking lots. We just aren't used to that here and a lot of people have been housebound for days on end, including me. It's enough to make you just want to get OUT.

At the same time the storms have been rolling on through the valley, storms have been rolling through my life. A week into the storm, I was laid off from my job. They wouldn't tell me why, but budget cuts are a pretty reliable bet as it's happening to many. Getting a hold of unemployment has been frustrating to say the least. Then on Christmas day, I tried unsuccessfully to start my car. The next day I tried replacing the battery which apparently needed it anyway but that didn't work, then tried putting gas in and that didn't work either. The next options are the fuel pump, much more expensive. At this point I was in tears, I had reached the end of my rope and didn't know what else to grab onto. It was right then my dad called me getting a very upset daughter on the phone. I managed to tell him about the car through my tears, he said some very fatherly things, and after telling me he would pick me up in the morning for our family Christmas, we hung up. A half-hour later, there was a knock on my door and there stood my dad, coming straight to my apartment after work to give me a big hug.

Thus far, I have felt like I've been alone in my problems; that I need to come up with the solutions by myself with little help from anyone else. It's very depressing. I cannot tell you how much it meant to me that my dad let me know I am not in this by myself, that he is there for me and will continue to be there through it all with endless love.

The next morning as my family was sitting around the living room with my nieces playing amongst us, my dad explained to my mechanically inclined brother what was going on with my car. My brother said he'll look at it and try to figure out what is wrong. It was a weight lifted off my shoulders to know I have help, people who care.

This storm is certainly not the one I wanted, either the ice and snow or the one in my life. We often don't know why these storms come through and shake up what we counted on, why they alter the way we live our lives. But if there is something I have learned from the ice, is that it eventually melts and goes away. The snow banks disappear and are no more. This gives me hope. Eventually we find our feet again and when we do, we find the storm has pushed us in a new direction, a direction we had resisted or never knew existed. The storms open our eyes to new possibilities. As dark and jumbled up as they seem, there is light and strength in the storm. This is a hard thing for me to write, even harder to remember when I am struggling to not despair. But something deep within me tells me this is true, truer than the storm and truer than the darkness. It is true beyond all things, the truth that is part of the deepest truth: God's love. And I know it's there. Like my dad coming to reassure me I am not alone, so God assures us we are not alone. He is there, even when we cannot see Him in the way we did before. God is indeed moving in the storm.