You Got This—or Not!

I had traveled this familiar road hundreds of times.  Every bend, every dip, every bump—they were all indelibly etched into my brain.  I could afford to pay scant attention to the white lines slipping by and the farmhouses growing and shrinking in my peripheral vision.  Pushing the search button on the radio tuner, fiddling with the heating and air conditioning controls, and—for shame—thumbing my phone screen—were all customary activities as I sped down the highway.  I was utterly comfy and presumptuous to a fault in my routine. 

But on this day in question, I got a later start than I anticipated.  The recent autumnal time change darkened the sky sooner, and I failed to appreciate the temperature drop accompanied by an increase in precipitation.  My travel time put me squarely between the storm startup and the moment the first snowplows and salt trucks were dispatched.  Freshly fallen snow, beautiful from the front room window but treacherous from the windshield of the car, turned my familiar road into a hazard zone.  Those familiar white lines were now obliterated by clumps of the cold powder, and the recognizable landscape disappeared in the smothering storm.   Huge eighteen-wheelers charged carelessly by, spewing slush and spray, forcing me to swerve into the rumble strips on the shoulder.  Cars in ditches and jack-knifed trucks littered the scene.  That which I had become so familiar with turned into a nightmare of guesses, risks and hopes.  

Don’t let familiarity hypnotize you.  As soon as you think that you are firmly in control of life, a simple storm can dramatically upend everything.  You may find out that the strange look the boss gave you one morning will signal a termination slip.  You may find out that the nagging cough you had was not symptomatic of the seasonal cold this year.  You may find out that the foul odor you noticed in the basement was much worse than the occasional dampness you get at certain times of the year.  You may find out that the friends you always counted on betrayed your confidence.  Familiar scenes can become discombobulated.  Things you rarely paid attention to can suddenly loom as the number one nemesis in your life.  No, you don’t got this. 

When the snow falls, when the way grows dark, when you can’t see the road ahead of you, you have to change your approach.  You slow down, you grip the wheel tighter, you quit fooling with the tuner or the phone screen, and you stop mindlessly gazing at the sights across the countryside.  The tractor-trailer rig that you dreaded will look more like a Godsend, blazing a trail in front of you.  

Best of all, God knows how to transform a tranquil highway into a prayer room!