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The Night of The Ice StormJanuary 31, 2008 There was supposed to be a really bad ice storm that night. A spring thunderstorm in the middle of winter, cold enough to make it icy instead of just rainy. I lay awake a long time listening to the strong winds beating the trees, feeling them shake the house. I had brought the weather radio upstairs with me so I could hear it--just in case there were any tornado warnings issued. The rest of the family was fast asleep. I had finally turned the weather announcements off and was drifting off to sleep when I heard a car spinning out on the road. I saw their lights flash through the windows, and that meant they had to be out of control. I grabbed my glasses and sprang from bed. But to my surprise, it was just a car using our driveway to turn around. The lane must have been a little icy, and they were spinning out. I watched them turn around, as I usually do when someone makes a course correction in our driveway. To my astonishment, instead of pulling out and into the far lane as they should have, they drove along the near edge of the road and drifted off the road into our front yard. "Oh, my," I breathed. I gasped as I heard them gun the motor and, regaining control of their car, turn purposefully into our front yard and head straight for the house. "Father, help us!" was all I had time to cry. Immediately the car made a sharp left turn around the bush, drove directly between two recently placed forsythia plants, turned down the driveway, came out onto the road--into the proper lane--and roared off. My heart was pounding. I stood listening until their sound was gone. I thought they might crash farther down the road. My outburst had awakened my husband. He stumbled from bed and came to the window, without his glasses. Trembling, I told him what had happened and pointed out the tracks they'd left in the yard. I could see them so clearly. He retrieved his glasses and looked again, but the tracks were hard for him to see, the car was gone, it was cold and dark and stormy, and he was tired. He hadn't witnessed it. In the morning, we walked out to the front yard. There was little ice. The storm hadn't been as bad as predicted, and the roads were in excellent shape. I showed my husband the tracks again. He could see them now. I told him about my anguished cry to God, and we marveled once again at God's provision in caring--not only for us and our house--but for the people in the car. There never was an accident on our road that night, nor anywhere in the area. And do you know what else? As little space as there is between those two very young forsythia bushes, neither one of them had a single broken twig. I believe God was guiding that car back out of our yard and onto the road. In the days since, each time I look out and see the tracks and the forsythia, I thank Him again for His infinite care for His creation--all of it. |
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Chantal L. DeYoe
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