Apparently Thomas Jefferson and George Washington experienced a blizzard of similar magnitude to the one we did in Washinton D.C. area last weekend but certainly, it was the biggest recorded dump of snow since official records began. Having come from a place where even a thin layer of ice on a puddle mid-winter was cause for great excitement, I find having the landscape transformed to pure white quite magnificent.
What I have not found quite as magnificent is having my life interrupted. My four children have been home from school since Thursday and, alas, with another snow storm due to arrive tomorrow, they may well be off all week. Ukurumba…there goes those plans of mine!
Yet as I sit here with my homemade latte beside my keyboard (the esspresso machine I gave Andrew for Christmas has been worth its weight in gold these last few housebound days!), I can’t help but think about how this storm, with all the interruptions and inconveniences it has brought with it, is a valuable analogy for the bigger storms that come our way through life.
The problem isn’t that things happen in life that completely throw us off our plans, it is that we expect anything otherwise. Many years ago, midway through the second trimester of pregnancy with my first child, I discovered that it had died. It was New Year’s Eve 1996. To me that baby was already born. I was already a proud mother. But then, in the span of several minutes, without any signs to warn me, I discovered I wasn’t pregnant. I wasn’t going to have that cherished baby. That this new little life inside me [Read more…]