It is amazing how even the worst times can be used by our loving God to bring out the best in us. I saw ample evidence of this recently when a fast moving Winter storm dumped an incredible two and a half feet of snow here. Cars were buried, businesses and schools were closed, roads were impassible, people were stranded, and tree limbs were snapped taking down power lines with them. A state of emergency was declared and it looked like the bad weather had beaten us all down forever. In the mist of all this misery though, the best in everyone emerged.
We slowly came out of our houses, grabbed our snow shovels, and went to work. We started by shoveling out our driveways and cars. We greeted neighbors doing the same. Then we started helping each other whenever we could. Snow blowers were shared. Paths were dug out so little dogs could have a place to walk. Anyone with an extra snow plow attached it to their truck and cleared side drives while the state workers cleared the main roads. People who still had electricity thanked God for it and then went out to help those who had lost theirs.
Electric line workers were tireless in their efforts to restore as many
homes' power as quickly as possible and every person whose home was lit back up smiled with a new appreciation for the energy they once took for granted. Families gathered around stoves, hugged each other in blankets, and looked out on the majestic mountains covered in snow. Then when the warm sun returned after days of cold, they greeted it like a long lost friend. They watched the beautiful sunrise too like it was for the very first time.
All of this gave me a new respect for all the tough times and bad weather I had faced in my own life. I see now that God is always with us in our Winter nights as well as our Summer days. I see too that our love and joy sometimes grow warmest when life is at its coldest.
By Joseph J. Mazzella
Read and meditate on these scriptures:
1 John 4:7-11 “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and
every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”
1 Peter 3:8-11 “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye
are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will
love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.”
All of these scriptures can be found in the King James Version Bible.
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