Where Did That Come From?
Being forced to slow down doesn’t always feel the greatest, but sometimes is very much needed.
And that wasn’t more evident than when we got hit by a freak lake-effect snowstorm out of nowhere on, of all days, Halloween. And clearly we were being told to slow down and take a day off, but that only worked for so long for us. Please enjoy this crazy story of so much going on at once.
We have finally gotten to a point where our house was ready to go on the market. So, of course, we immediately start looking for our dream homestead. We find it (another story for another time) and ours goes on the market. Within 3 days we have an offer and we accept. That day we hear weather is a little interesting and to expect a light dusting of snow, not enough to even track.
Well……….
That was far from what happened. The day we accepted the offer on our home, the snow starts to fall. The winds are circling and by 1p we have 6 inches sitting on the ground. By the time the oldest got home from school, there are 12 inches. Just after he walks through the door, we lose power. And the snow is still falling
Trees, powerlines, and cable lines are coming down left and right. The city trucks can’t even get on the road fast enough as most of them haven’t been converted to the plows yet. A cable line fell off our house in fact and blocked the youngest two kids bus from getting through. In the process of trying to help the driver she gets stuck in the road and in two different driveways. The younger kids even tell us that a tree limb fell on their bus as they were driving under a tree on the next road over.
We had to go out at least twice in this time to brush snow off a tree that started bending toward the chicken coop. Trying to save our girls from harm. The temperature had dropped from the morning from a whopping 45 degrees to barely 20 degrees by the time this storm started. Our girls were doing everything to stay warm in their coop and we couldn’t do much to help them except to keep the doors closed and us not go in to limit the heat from escaping.
Just before all this happened is when we signed the acceptance offer on our home. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep that night, listening to trees and limbs fall in our back woods, praying none would land on our home.
By the next morning the power still hadn’t come on, we were starting to feel the temp drop in the house, everyone was getting cold, but we were making due. The kids were getting bored but luckily we hadn’t packed up the games or puzzles yet. So they start digging. And in that process, through all that stress is when I started to see that we desperately needed that slow down.
Our family needed the time away from electronics, we needed this time to be truly bored. For the kids to see there is more than just tv, video games, or what not. That sitting down and working on a puzzle or playing board games is fun. That drawing, writing, or reading stories by candle light can be relaxing. That card games aren’t just for camping, they are for any time of the year. It was that freedom that made me realize that moving to our future farm is exactly what our kids will need.
I want them to start seeing that “being bored” isn’t actually boredom, but the chance for them to start using the brain exactly as God intended it to be used. To be free to build, explore, and learn in a completely different way from how they learn in school. To start learning what their limits are and to push those limits past what they could ever imagine.
Yes I was terrified, I was stressed, I was anxious, and I was beyond recognition of this blessing the snow was for on that day. But now I see. Now I see why it happened and what can come from it. It was the perfect situation to happen at God’s timing. That snow storm reminded me that we all need to take a break, from everything else in life and just BE in the moment. Just stop and enjoy the beauty even when everything else may be feeling wrong. To cherish the moments where we can actually be a family together and enjoy those family moments that are becoming so few.
