There is a road out there somewhere.
Any proverbs about weather are doubly true during a storm. That’s what Ed Nordstrum said, or maybe it was Terry Guillemets. That’s one of the problems of the internet. Hard to tell sometimes who said what.
It’s fun to talk about the weather and it is usually a conversation starter. One of things that we share up here in the North Country is the fascination with weather. Some would call it an obsession but you have to be up here for a while to get it. We say things like “we have some weather coming”, or that was “some weather”. It is not just a force of nature, it is a personal entity that sometimes seems to have a mind and a will all of its own.
One of the “joys” of a rural ministry is the confrontations with weather. When Pastors get together to have meetings I love to listen and hear the stories of a hospital run at 3 in the morning in the snow. There usually is no embellishment or explanation, just the bare facts of the story. For those of us that have done it there is no more detail needed and for those that never have no details will be enough. The jolt of that phone call and the next jolt from getting out of a warm bed and wander out to a cold car; the lonesome drive in what seems to be a pillow case and being thankful and fearful that no one else is on the road at the same time. Thankful because you don’t have to worry about running into someone and fearful because if the ditch catches you it might be nice to have some company and a tow rope. That trail of melting snow that you leave behind as you slink down the empty hospital hallways trying not to wake up the sleeping patients, and the fog from you glasses waiting to be wiped away so that you can see where you are going. The prayer as the warmth of the room finally begins to sink into your bones and the commendation of the dying, for that is usually what this trip at this hour means.
The surprise encounters with weather though are the ones you remember the most. I took the above picture when I ran into a snow storm that I do not believe had been forecast. In literally two minutes I went from great visibility to having to pull over for a few minutes becasue I couln’t see the road. Like lightening out of a blue sky the blizzard that comes suddenly and unforcast can be interesting. We live in a part of the world where that is still possible and it makes me think of Psalm 147:12-18
“Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!… He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts forth His ice as fragments, Who can stand before His cold? He sends forth His word and melts them. He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow.”
