Nothin’ could be finer than to be in Carolina in a snowstorm…or at least to be here when snow is in the forecast.
The mad dash to the grocery, the closing of schools at the first hint of the first snowflake, the frenzy to find anything that might be used to slide down an incline.
What an amazing phenomena, especially to those of us who were raised “up Nawth” where anything less than six inches of snow is considered pretty ho-hum.
I got to experience both flavors of snow this year–Yankee and Southern–so the contrast is fresh in my mind.
In January, my husband and I arrived in Indiana at the same time a snowstorm was blowing in. Our flight got in late at night and we descended to the runway through a thick white curtain of snow. It might have been pretty had it not been so nerve-wracking.
A foot of snow came down, but those silly Hoosiers didn’t get it. Snow plows were immediately clearing streets, most businesses were open, and life went on as if trudging through snow up to one’s kneecaps was normal.
“Don’t you people know what snow MEANS?” I wanted to shout. “Life is supposed to STOP! You are not supposed to go anywhere. You are supposed to hunker down at home and consume the bread and milk you surely raced to the grocery store to buy yesterday.”
A few weeks ago we braced ourselves here in Greenwood for a “winter storm.”
It was a big deal. Snow is always a big deal here, and except for a few Grinches among us, Southerners generally love it when snow is in the forecast. It turned out to be less than we expected, but folks still managed to scrape together snowballs from the dusting we received.
I remember when I was a student at Auburn University and a rare winter storm hit. My Southern friends went nuts and plundered the cafeterias for food trays to slide on. The whole campus went berserk.
“I came here to get away from this stuff,” I scrooged.
But on winter days when it was 65 degrees in Auburn, I was the one who went berserk. “I CANNOT believe this! I am playing tennis in February. I am wearing shorts and a t-shirt!! Don’t you understand how AMAZING this is?!”
My friends looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What’s the big deal?” they scrooged.
It’s the double-edged malaise of mankind: Taking “ordinary” blessings for granted and always pining for something else, something more, something new.
In the Bible’s Old Testament, we read how God provided food for the Israelites by sprinkling the ground each morning with a tasty, heavenly wafer called “manna.” Pretty cool…at first. But the Israelites quickly got used to God’s provision and started whining for something different.
The miraculous became mundane.
Here’s how God saw it: “When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot Me.” (Hosea 13:6)
What are we taking for granted? What blessings have become to us as ordinary as snow in the North, winter warmth in the South, or manna in the desert?
Let’s look around our lives, find things to be thankful for (everybody has some), and resolve never to take for granted the gifts…or forget the One who gives it all.
“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…” – James 1:17