Snow Day by Billy Coffey

Author:Billy Coffey [COFFEY, BILLY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780446574778
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 2010-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

13

Finding Life

Small grins of sunshine again poked through the dour clouds. What little snow was left in them fell from the sky in larger flakes, a final gasp that a few minutes later slowed to a sputtering flurry and then stopped completely. The snowstorm was over. In a few hours the plows would catch up with nature and most of the roads would be cleared. By the next day, things would likely be back to normal. Such were all storms, I reasoned. They poured and howled and threatened, but they ultimately gave way to calmer skies if we just hung on a little longer.

That’s what I was doing. Hanging on. Doing so seemed a courageous act until I realized it wasn’t. Courage required choice, and I didn’t have an alternative. The ride home meant taking the detour again, which meant time. Time to gather my memories and ponder my day thus far. And also time to process exactly what I was going to tell my wife when I got home.

Abby’s faith was strong, much stronger than my own. But financial stability and a debt-free life were her mission, and those two things now seemed jeopardized. The stronger our fears, the more our faith is tested. What would the news do to her?

Maybe I could lessen the blow with a little finesse. Sure, I had to tell Abby the truth. But I could dress it up any way I wanted. I could go the positive route. (“Honey, you know how we’ve been worrying whether I would have to work on Christmas Day? Well guess what? Looks like I’ll be home!”) Or there was the walk-by-faith approach I’d thought of right after Sammy’s phone call. (“Sure, things look bad. But now we get to see what God can do!”)

But a tiny thought had been building in the back of my mind since I left the Super Mart. The sort of thought that sneaks and looms and waits for just the right moment to push everything else out of the way and inflict as much emotional damage as possible. That moment happened when I was considering which option seemed best. In those few seconds, the part of me who was certain everything would work out met the part of me who was most certainly not.

The certain me said that either approach would work, that after the initial shock Abby and I would do what we’d always done—bear our struggles with faith. The uncertain me rebutted by saying that not only were those approaches uninspiring, they were inappropriate. News like losing my job should never be shared with an exclamation point.

I spoke to a lone ray of sunshine poking through the clouds. “Could You at least give me the right words to tell Abby?” I said. “I’d appreciate that. And You’d better hurry, because I’m almost home.”

By the time I dropped off Mandy’s bread and milk, I knew two things. One was that this was an instance in which God had chosen to remain anonymous.

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