The Nature of Ice

As ice and snow clings to every tree branch, windshield, and block of cement in the world outside, I am reminiscent of those expectant evenings as a school aged child, waiting with bated breath for those few simple words... "Crowley ISD is closed." 

It was like an unexpected gift on an average day.  Mom would make chili, we’d explore outside, and warm up with a nap or a family movie and ask, incessantly, the rest of the day, if it would happen again tomorrow. 

Now, I sit and think of laundry not done, floors to be mopped, plans to be made, errands to run and emails to be returned. I get anxious about my new found immobility outside the walls of my house. 

There's a drive in me to "do". There's a longing in me to "complete".  I have a desire to "engage".  So I sit with one screen on my lap, one in my hand, and another glowing across the room. I simultaneously use each one trying desperately to fill this drive, this longing, this desire.  

Meanwhile, the Father is summoning me. The designer of this drive, longing, and desire has come to fulfill. He sent this frozen immobilization for me to stop.  Be still.  Know. Remember.  There is no fault in stopping.  There is great discipline in stillness. There is freedom in knowing.  There is hope in remembering.  

He seeks to fulfill that desire in me to do something meaningful by engaging with me. 

What is more complete than communing with the Holy One?  

We tried two days and I failed to listen to the politness of his beckoning and so here we are again.  There are 36 hours left to complete a list of things before I step aboard a plane. There are bags to be packed, loose ends to be tied, and my floors are still dirty.  But for now, I will stop. Be still. Know. Remember. For all else is like this ice that covers my world, fleeting and fading with every second.