Winter Showers

Snow thick sheeting,
 
        Plate glass windows,
         
                 Cafe buzzing,
           
                          With bubbling

                                 Miniature

                                      Basketball team

Was it supposed to snow today?  What do we even mean when we say that?  Apparently it was since it is.

Unexpected, unpredicted, outside my plan for the day.

The very definition of life.

I can scowl at the lowering skies as I dash to my car,

Or pause to laugh at the kiss of snowflakes on my cheeks.

The choice, as we endlessly intone to the kids, is mine.

   

Dog Sled Mini

I breathe in the tang of sharp crisp cold of record breaking St Louis snow, and brush the memories that seem like yesterday.  How can it be twenty years ago that I stood out on nights like this, looking up into sparkled Alaskan skies searching for the endless swirls of Northern Lights.  

I pulled my toddlers behind me everywhere that winter.  They bumped along in their little red sled over snow packed roads and sidewalks.  

Two blocks behind our house lay a lake of thickly dusted frozen expanse.   The dog raced after us that day, in bouncing excitement.  His curly black cocker spaniel fur glowed in sharp contrast against the snow as he skittered and slid on the ice.  We shuffled out to middle of the lake, tugging, and scrambling, and sliding until I decided to harness his boundless hysterical energy.  

I hooked him to the children's sled.  They sat stuffed together, in snow suits so thick they could barely bend, flapping their arms in excitement.

He shot off in proud delight when I fastened the final buckle.  Their shrieks of delight spurred him on as I chased after the careening carriage on foot.  We stumbled together in laughing circles.  They begged for more each time he stopped to catch his breath, and with brief stops in between, he was delighted to oblige.  

The children tumbled off at last, and lay in exhausted joy on the frozen sheet.  I dropped beside them and eyed the helpless fold of plastic.   I was determined to try it myself.  I wedged my way onto the sled as the dog pranced his eagerness to fly off again.  

There we ended though.  He turned to look back over his shoulder as I called to him to take off, and considered his unexpected new passenger.  He leveled a glance at me that announced as clear as speech, "You've got to be kidding me."

The God of hope

Now may the God of hope

 fill you with all joy and peace 

as you believe in Him

 so that you may overflow with hope

 by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15: 13

The God of hope; the God of the future.  Hope looks forward.  It bubbles with optimism, with the faith that the struggle will be worthwhile in the end.  Hope is strength; a goal to grasp, a reason to keep pressing on.

It's the reason I walk around muttering "eight more years" every time it gets insane at work.

I try to stop myself from doing it.  It makes me feel guilty every time.  I don't want to live in a fog of longing for the future, but maybe all it really is is hope.

There's a constant tension between living for today and grasping at the tendrils of the future.  Maybe there's really not much we can do about that.

It's a fixture of humanity that we can visualize consequences and imagine our place in the future.  We're not particularly accurate with it, but the hope comes in seeing that future in a positive light,  in expecting it all to get better.

Joy and peace are the gifts of God for today.

Am I filled with joy and peace when I have hope the future?

Do I have hope for the future because I'm filled with joy and peace?

The God of hope.

What an incredible title.  Not the God of  destruction or fear or punishment;
       but hope,
               the strength of life,
                      the balm of despair.