After
receiving our room keys, we unloaded one suitcase for Bill
(who boycotted my efficiency plan) and one for the girls and I. Then it
was time to leave for dinner.
The
evening passed by quickly as we kept dry and warm
with family while the ice accumulated outside. By the
time we returned to our hotel, the ground was so slick and the wind was so strong that Bill had trouble
getting the girls to the building after they got out of the van
on his side.
"Grab
my hand!" I yelled, trying to be heard above the wind. I
wanted to reach out to them but, every time I took a step away from
the protection of the building, the wind threatened to blow
me over. Eventually, with great effort, Bill
pulled the girls close enough to take hold of my hand and I
helped
them out of the wind.
We
entered the back door of the hotel with no plans to return
to the van that evening; no plans, that is, until I learned
that I had failed to transfer the girls' toothbrushes and several other needed items to the suitcases I
had brought into the hotel when we checked in.
It was
on
my third trip to the van to retrieve forgotten items that I
realized: too much of a good thing—planning
included—is a bad thing and sometimes, attempts to make
situations easier, end up complicating them even more.
"Okay God. I get it." I said as the wind
made it difficult to hear my own voice. "You never promised us an easy life, just an eternal one."
"What I don't
understand is why." I added as I found the item I was
looking for.
Too
chilled to wait for an answer, I shut the back of the van
for what I hoped was the last time that night and returned to our hotel room
to finish getting the girls ready for bed.
When we were
all tucked in, I reached up to turn off the light just as
Hollie sat up in bed to ask, "Where's Bearsnickles?"
Bill
and I looked at each other, neither wanting to answer.
"He's
keeping everything safe in the van." I explained, trying to
sound like it was a good thing.
"But I
need Bearsnickles." Hollie protested.
As
much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew that Hollie was
right. Since
before I could remember, Bearsnickles has been her
favorite companion, going with us to
doctor's appointments
and
celebrations; on
play dates in the park and
family vacations. He's been on
airplanes,
subway trains, and
long driving trips through the Midwest plains. Still,
as important as Bearsnickles was to my daughter, I was not
going to risk my life to get him.
"You should have carried your bear into the hotel when we
checked in." I lectured. "It's too icy to go
outside again."
Hollie's lip began to quiver as she prepared for a night
without her bear.
Seeing
her distress, Bill sat up in bed and said, "Because Bearsnickles is important to you, I'll go out
to the van to get him."
I felt
a twinge of guilt as Bill said so eloquently what I hadn't
intended to say at all. I also felt enlightened as the
answer I had been waiting for came to me in the form of a
man braving the storm for a forgotten bear.
Without trials, there would be no triumph. I said to
myself as Bill walked out of the room.
There
would also be no
sense of satisfaction,
I added when Bill
returned a few minutes later with Hollie's
companion
in the crook of his arm.
"Bearsnickles!" Hollie called out as she reached
for her cuddly friend. "Thanks Dad, you're the best!"
He
is the best, I said to myself as I turned out the light.
And
tomorrow he'll need to be his best at driving when we check out of
the
hotel and head back to Lincoln to attend a New Year's Eve party
with friends.
"The
van is coated with ice girls," I said the next morning
when the sliding doors refused to open, "You'll have
to climb in through my door."
I
helped the girls get situated as Bill scraped the
windshield. Then it
was time to leave for Lincoln. As Bill steered the van toward the
interstate, I marveled at the scenery. It was like we had walked through a
wardrobe into
Nebraska's version of Narnia.
I was also surprised by the damage
as I counted three poles in a row that had broken off at the base.
"How
are they going to replace these poles in the dead of winter?" I
asked Bill. "And what about the ones that are leaning forward from the weight
of the ice-laden lines?"
We
would later learn that last night's storm left
10,000 to 15,000
Nebraskans
without power.[1]
For now, all we needed to know was that the road was
in better condition than the state's electrical system,
allowing us to drive out of the icy weather and into Lincoln
without incident.
"Everything
is white," I said as we
entered the city limits, surprised by what a difference a
day—and seven inches of snow—could make. Later that afternoon, it was our friends who were surprised when we
arrived at the New Year's Eve party on time.
"We
didn't know if you were going to make it back to Lincoln,"
my friend Rachel
said.
As
she went on to tell me about how upset her girls were
when she warned them that Katie and Hollie might not be at
the party, I realized just how lucky we were to be there.
Many families had to cancel their New Year's Eve plans after
the worst ice storm in fifty years crippled the states
electrical distribution system, causing more than two hundred
million dollars in damages.[2]
Still,
we were able to emerge from the
wardrobe to spend a warm night with family and friends.
Perhaps you have experienced a time when you looked back at
the obstacles you've faced and wondered how you made it
through them. King David
had one of these moments when, after reflecting on how God had taken him from pasture to palace,
he sat before the Lord and said,
"Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you
have brought me this far?"[3]
Knowing what David went through as he waited to become King
makes me wonder, Who are any of us to expect
fewer trials than David, a man after God's own heart?[4]
Maybe trials are the very thing we need to make our journey,
not easier, but educational as we look beyond the problem to
find its purpose.
On
page 48 of their book, God Is In The Hard Stuff: Where To
Turn When The Going Gets Tough, authors Bruce
Bickel and Stan Jantz expanded upon this point when they wrote: "When we appreciate that God uses the hard
stuff in our lives, it will make those circumstances easier
to endure. But that isn't the entire benefit ... All of a
sudden, life's challenges aren't simply something to be
endured. We can begin to see them as tools God is using to
shape our lives for the better".
Two
thousand miles and nearly two weeks after setting out on our
trip to Nebraska, I was back in Illinois a more seasoned
traveler, shaped by the knowledge that:
God doesn't promise us an
easier life, just an eternal one;
without trials, there would be no triumph;
and no matter how difficult the journey, we're just
lucky to be on it as we learn from what we live
through along the way.
Safe
Travels
A
Quote
to Grow On
