Steady On

The wind was just enough to throw the large snow flakes into a mesmerizing swirl as they fell, fluffy and quick, through the winter storm sky. When they fall like that, the headlights don’t cut far enough and even my depth perception changes. I watch the light on the dashboard flash orange, warning me of something I was already feeling beneath me: my car’s traction is slipping…

That’s what it’s like to drive in the winter storms. 

Have you ever been there? …tried it? I bet you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Traction is a concept that changes minute to minute and seemingly, the only way to hold on to it is to keep a pace that is so slow a snail could keep up with you, a pace that is half boredom and half terror as soon as you feel it all sort of slide out from under you, as you feel control ceded to something much bigger.

And it hit me in that moment when I couldn’t see and the warning light flashed on: snow driving is a lot like life-living in the wintery, hard moments. 

The way ahead is often obscure and some days it feels like there’s little between boredom and terror. You doubt the light will be enough to cut through it. Oh, and the storm that started it all, you know how it goes… the storm only ever seems to show up on that one day that you have someplace to be, something else to do, too much going on to think about slipping, sliding and black ice moments, right?

But with life, as with the storm moments, the only way out is to push through it, not like a battering ram, but slow – so slow. I want to get to my destination. In the storm moments, the speed that should be possible on the road and the speed that I can go are two very different things and oh, it’s almost laughable how even on a silly suburban road in the middle of January, it’s the “should” that knocks at the very door of my identity. 

But no, the only thing I can do is go ever so slowly forward and pray that the tires with their grooves – the very grooves that were carved into them when they were made – grab the road and hold it fast just as they are supposed to do. 

Do you see it like I did in that road moment, dear ones?

All the ways we move forward, there were things carved into the heart of us when we were made – before we were made, truly. And it is this that hold us to the road, that pulls us back when we slip, keeps us slow and true when the way ahead feels obscured, that keeps us from losing patience and grace when it feels like the very sky is falling around us.

So don’t chafe in the storm when the going is slow and frustrating. There’s more to the storm that you can see. And perhaps you were designed to hold steady – for this very day.

Moment by moment. 

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Psalm 139:16