For those of you who have seen the movie "Air Force One" with Harrison Ford, do you remember the scene at the end of the movie when the F-15s deftly swooped in to surround and protect the U.S. President after he transferred to a new plane? That's the kind of the feeling I had on Friday evening.
Chris had a meeting in Lone Tree that night. The drive there was fairly uneventful except for the traffic which delayed his arrival by 30 minutes. While he was in his meeting, I drove with the girls to Target to find new shoes for Kristen. Within 20 minutes of our arrival, a light sprinkling of snow had begun, and Chris called me at Target to say that he was done already. We made our purchases and headed back to pick him up. The snowfall intensity increased within one mile, and I was happy to cede back the driver's seat. We drove to the mall for a quick dinner. I had the feeling that we should at least drive for 30 minutes north to see if the storm eased up any. It was late and the girls were hungry, so we didn't. The girls weren't too happy to have made the trip past Denver to just turn around and go home again, but when we left the mall there was more than an inch of snow on the ground and it was coming down fast. There was no question that we were headed home. The flakes were huge and beautiful yet the prospect of a long and treacherous drive home was not thrilling.
The cars on the freeway were moving slowly along which I was grateful for. We had been northbound on the freeway for only a couple of minutes when we saw a multiple car pileup in the southbound lanes. And just as we passed the accident we saw more flashing blue lights ahead of us. Gratefully it was from a snowplow just making its way onto the freeway. Cars slowed and parted as not one but three snowplows moved into formation in front of us. It was awe inspiring really as they choreographed into position in front of us. A goose bump moment if you will.
Spiritually speaking, I would relate it to the topic spoken of in church today, "Be still, and know that I am God." There were a few drivers who weren't happy with the pace the snowplows set and manuevered around them. For those of us following the snowplow, I think we were all happy to let them lead the way. Our way was well lit, the snow was cleared, and we were being careful. You could just tell that the snowplow drivers knew what they were doing and had done it before.
Incidentally, the storm eased as we drove further north and by the time we reached home, there was only a light skiff of snow on the ground. The second moral of the story, heed the first intonations of the spirit.
