Psalm 107

This has been a long winter here in Boston.  We were quite literally buried by winter.  With 100 inches of snow in 45 days.  We did not know what to do with it all.  The day winter got the best of me.  My husband and I were trying to shovel yet another 12+ inches on top of the snow piles which already were in the neighborhood of 12 feet high.  The snow was still falling but we had learned that two or three rounds of shoveling always goes better than waiting and doing one at the end.

We live in a city, we have limited space to put the snow we remove from our driveways, parking spots and sidewalks so the piles were just getting higher and higher.  I went out ready to shovel, to tackle, once again the blanket of frozen white hate that covered our cars and sidewalks.  Mike had shoveled a path from the door to the drive and I went to work on the drive. Picking up a shovel full of snow and walking the 10 feet to the pile where we were putting all our snow, and launched the snow up over my head to the top of the pile, but it did not land on the top of the pile as it had the million other times I had done this this season, it fell on my head. and landed in the path.  I scooped it back up and tried again.  Once again it landed on my head.  Three times told me that I defeated.  12 feet was apparently the limit of how high I can toss a shovel full of snow, because not matter how hard I tried the snow did not land on the top.

I had an idea, I climbed to the top of the snow mountain range which resided the none driveway space between our cars and our fence, and began take snow off the top and shovel it down the back side toward our fence.  I was ruining the girls "sledding hill."  They had been sledding down the back side of this 12 foot tall snow bank toward our fence.  But the pile needed to be smaller, so I could put driveway snow on top.  I actually succeeded taking at least two maybe three feet off the top. I was so proud of myself.  My husband was not even halfway finished with the drive and now I could go help him, AND our snow pile was shorter.

I went back down, and took up a shovel full of snow and attempted once more to throw the snow to the top of the pile and failed once more.  I had failed to take into account that after 45 mins of shoveling heavy, dense, packed down snow off the top of our snow bank, my arms would be much more tired than they were when I began and the height to which I could throw a shovel full of snow would be reduced.

I was defeated.  I stood in my driveway and cried.  I told my husband I was done, that winter had defeated me and I could no longer help shovel snow, unless I wanted to play the part of Sisyphus and continually shovel the same shovel full of snow.  And I stood in my drive, surrounded by snow and cried.  That was the moment I lost it.

I say all this because this winter I am aware of what if feels like to be defeated, to be beat down by life, to have no hope of moving forward.  But all through winters darkness, all through the mountains of snow, God was with me.  God always delivers us, always walks with us, always gathers us from where ever we are.  God's steadfast love endures.  Even when I am defeated, even when I am standing crying in my drive, the love of the Lord is there.

I know it is such a simple and logical thing to say, but winter will not last forever.  May will come, May always comes and May brings warm weather.  It may snow in April here in Boston, but rarely. May always brings relief.  The winter will never last forever and God brings us through ever winter, out of the cold darkness in to the warm light.

Winter is long, the snow may pile up and we may be defeated by it all, but Spring will always come.  God will always bring us through.   No matter what winter may look like in your life, no matter what you find that you are defeated by, God will bring  you through.  Light will come, Spring will arrive.

Even now as I watch the dark dirty snow piles recede I can see God's grace, God's mercy, God's redemption at work bringing us back to the light.

God's steadfast love endured forever.