Important Three-letter Hinge

 

"Don't be afraid," the angel could have said to us in a Wisconsin snowstorm, "FOR unto you is sent this morn a snow plow driver." 

On a recent Sunday morning during Sunday School, I learned about the important little word "for" that appears in fearful situations frequenting the Christmas Story. Our lesson was taken from Isaiah 43, where there are phrases such as "Fear not, for I have redeemed thee" and "Fear not, for I am with thee". One of the ladies in the class pointed out the similarities of these God-declarations in Isaiah to the messages that angels delivered to fearful Nativity characters. 

God didn't scold these anxious humans, He acknowledged their fear and gave them a reason to trust Him in the midst of that fear. The word "for" is the hinge connecting His directive for them not to be afraid with the reason they didn't need to be: Don't fear, Mary, FOR you have found favor with God. Joseph, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, FOR her coming baby is conceived of the Holy Ghost. Fear not, Shepherds, FOR unto you is born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord. 

"Don't be afraid in fearful circumstances, Dear Child of God, FOR your Heavenly Father is provisionary and trustworthy" seemed to be a takeaway from the lesson. What a great truth, I thought, as I left Sunday School. I will need to remember that for my own anxious moments. I had no idea how soon I would be able to put it into practice.

Later on that same Sunday, Ken & I and Kerra headed out on the drive to Hayward, Wisconsin for our "Christmas" with the Schrocks. We began our trip several hours earlier than we had initially planned because of a significant snowfall forecast for northern Michigan and Wisconsin, areas we traverse on our typical route to Hayward.

We made excellent time as we drove through the night on bare roads with minimal traffic. Near the town of Iron Mountain in Michigan, though, we hit snow. The first snowflakes in the air soon turned into a full-blown snowstorm of the thick, swirling, mesmerizing, hypnotizing brand.

Ken drove well, but slowly. The more we crept along the trackless, desolate stretch of road, the more tense I became. Ken asked me to help him keep an eye out for the edge of the road and an ear out for the rumble strip embedded in the center line of the road, so I hunched forward and peered out the windshield into the storm.

The 3.5 hours it usually takes to get from Iron Mountain to Mom & Dad's place in Hayward stretched into almost twice that long because of the driving difficulty. We navigated areas of poor visibility, and a few times we pulled off the road for a breather and to see if the storm would let up any for us to go on. (These ten-or-fifteen-minute breaks did seem to make things easier.) In some places, we pushed ahead through deep unplowed sections, and then slowed way down when the snow we were "plowing" with the van whooshed up over the windshield, creating sudden whiteouts. 

At one point, when we were an hour or so from Hayward (under normal driving conditions, that is), Ken pulled off the highway onto a side road to de-ice the windshield wipers. The van was just nicely off the main road, headed down a slight dip on that side road, when another vehicle came toward us and we had to get off to the side of the narrow road to let that driver by. 

When we came to a full stop, we were quite close to the snowbank at the edge of the road and when Ken tried to back the van up onto the side road proper again, the right front wheel slid farther into the bank and we were stuck. 

The knowledge that we were very stuck gradually sunk in after a lot of tire-spinning and passenger-pushing and hands-shoveling of snow away from the van wheels and a futile putting of van floor mats behind said wheels. "We'll need someone to pull us out of here," said Driver Ken, who is also known as Mr. Optimistic.  

Oh, dear! If Mr. Optimistic says we can't get unstuck by ourselves, it's bad. My fear kicked into high gear even though my senses were somewhat sluggish from having travelled all night with little sleep. How will we get out? It's still dark out! The snow is so deep! We're too far from Hayward to call my brothers and bother them to come get us unstuck. We're in a very unpopulated area of northern Wisconsin. If and when a vehicle does come by on the main road, we're too far in this side road to be seen by its driver... 

And then, after Kerra and I had climbed back into the warm van and Ken had walked off into the cold without telling us where he was going, (we ladies didn't know yet that his destination was up beside the main highway to flag down some help) I noticed the gas gauge light had come on. The next thing I knew, the distance to empty reading on the van dashboard was 0 km. Oh, great! I thought. Now we're going to sit here until we run out of gas yet. As if we don't have enough running-out-of-gas stories in our repertoire! Fine, I'll shut the motor off and just hope we don't freeze before somebody stops to help. 

I think it was at that point, when cynicism was about to join hands with my despair, I thought about praying. I don't think I actually remembered in detail my earlier commitment to fear not, FOR my God is trustworthy, but I did remember that I can cry to Him for help. So I did. Later, I learned it was right then that Ken specifically prayed God would send a vehicle along on the main road - someone with a rope or chain - to pull us out. This was after he had waited on the shoulder of the main highway for a very long time without seeing a single car or truck on the road. 

Very shortly after we both prayed our separate but joined prayers, a tow truck approached, slowed down somewhat, and drove on by. Soon after that, we heard...what is that, a flutter of angel wings? No, wait, that's a rumble of snow plow blades! 

Ken talked to the snow plow driver, who said that yes, he has a chain along, and no, he's not allowed to stop his highway work to pull somebody out of the ditch, and yes, he would want someone to stop and help if he was the one stuck in the snow at the side of the road, so no, he was not going to obey the letter of the law (my words), and yes, he would hook up his chain to our van and "walk" us right outta there. (pretty much his words)

It was an easy piece of work for his plow to pull our van out of the snowy ditch to the middle of the side road, facing away from the main highway. The driver accepted our immense gratitude for his help, but he wouldn't take any of the money Ken offered him for his trouble. After he left to continue plowing the snowy highway, we still had to back out of the side road before we could get out onto the main road and continue on our way to Hayward. 

Ken tried backing the van up the slight rise toward the highway, but he couldn't gain enough speed and  momentum to do it. The tires started spinning again. Since there was no room to turn around on that narrow road, eventually Ken drove ahead farther into the side road's snowy depths. He figured that way he could get more of a run at it when he put it in reverse again, but that move put my worrying into gear again. I was almost sure we would shimmy right back into the ditch, and then what? Wouldn't that be tempting God or something, to require a second rescue? 

But Ken steadily backed the van through the deep snow and out onto the main highway, where we were soon once again pointed toward Mom & Dad's place. Thankfully, both lanes of the highway were plowed by that time. The snow had stopped falling, and daylight had come. 

We made it to a gas station just outside Hayward to refuel before our vehicle ran out of gas completely (the angle the van was in from leaning into the snowbank had distorted the gas gauge reading). And, after some second tries and maneuverations through the ten inches of snow on Mom & Dad's unplowed road, we "skittered into their driveway" at last. 

What a happy reunion with my parents! And what a happy time we had with the Wisconsin Schrocks in the coming days, celebrating Christmas and delighting in the privilege of being together in person. It definitely was worth it, to go through our travel difficulties to get to the good family times in the end.

I feel a bit more connection to the once-fearful people in the Christmas story, now that I've encountered my own "fear not, FOR..." experience. The details of my story have implications of far less significance than theirs have, but the God to whom they surrendered their fears is the same One who assures me of His trustworthiness in any current situation. "FOR unto you this morn I send you a snow plow driver..."