…in everything give thanks
For this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
I Thessalonians 5:18
This morning I was a wee bit discontent during my morning walk because it was 7:00 AM and still dark.
I hate walking in the dark.
A few minutes later the sun rose, and the temperature dipped, as it often does in the chilly, late autumn dawn. My hands were double-gloved, but they went numb in the cold.
I hate it when my fingers go numb.
To get my blood flowing, I walked faster. Pretty soon my hands warmed up and the sun rose higher, bright in the cloudless sky. The brightness made me squint, and my eyes started to water.
I hate squinty, watery eyes.
A little later, my path curved, and I no longer faced the sun. A peculiar scritchy, scratchy sound came from a nearby parking lot,so l turned to see what it was. A shivering young man was scraping the frost off the windshield of his car. For the first time in a long time, I thought of our years in South Dakota when we never had a garage.
I hated scraping the windshield on frosty mornings before work in those days.
Inside me, a voice whispered. You don’t have to scrape windows anymore. You don’t even have to leave home to work any more.
I looked up and blinked. The sky was an intense, chilly October morning blue. The sun blazed bright and turn the thick carpet of frost into a field of glittering diamonds. The air smelled fresh, as satisfying as a drink of cold water on a hot day.
Suddenly, I was grateful for the still, chilly air stinging my cheeks. I was grateful for a sunny day after so many cloudy ones, grateful for this strange, cold month, grateful for a garage, grateful to the God who put me in this place on this day in this weather he had chosen.
“Forgive me, Father,” I whispered. Then I walked home, smiling and squinting at the sun.
