The Windshield

By Lois Hewitt

The chill of winter came overnight. Part of the week, I leave for work just after 6 am.  Which means now it’s dark and cold.

When I got into my car this morning, the temperature outside was 19 degrees. Please remember I lived most of my life in the Snow Belt. There were winters were 19 degrees was shorts weather.  But I ran away, fast, from those winters of sub-zero temps and feet of snow dropped in one event.

In the South, we still get a little winter but not like what I used to live with.

As I sat in my car, waiting for the thick ice on the window to melt (I refuse to buy an ice scraper), the car, for that brief moment, became all the world I could see.  I could not see outside and there was not much to see as it was dark.  My world got small and quiet.

No other people did I see. It was just me and a few small lights reflecting from the dashboard. Because it was so cold, I stayed in my own little world for quite some time.  Then slowly the windshield started to clear and my vision of the world grew.

No longer was it just me, but the neighbor also leaving for work, a man walking his dog and a few more houselights turned on as the world began to wake up.

Then all at once, my view was clear and I could see in front, in back and all around at my neighborhood. 

It made me think that so many times, we only see our small little world.  There is nothing wrong with that, as long as we also realize there is much more going on that we cannot see.

So it is with God.  Many times I only see my pain or my need or my situation.  In those times, I often forget that there are plans in play that I cannot see.  God’s plans very rarely reveal themselves in the immediate. There is often a time of waiting, a time of patience needed. 

I fell into despair for many years before God delivered me. I was sure He was ignoring me, if He even existed at all.  All I could feel was my mental illness and my anxiety and my pain. 

I had no idea where He was going to take me.  I would not have believed it, even if I had known.  The trip to here was a wild one with twists and turns never expected.  And as long as I have a breath to take, the journey isn’t over.

The next time I get to a place of smallness and I just can’t see further than just in front of me, I will remember the iced over window blocking my view and then it clearing to expand my view.

Sometimes you just have to scrape the window to see better.  God’s plans are epic and we have to have faith in them if we want to walk with Him.  I know the waiting is unbearable at times, but you never know when the windshield will clear showing you the road ahead.

I’m off to buy a scraper so that I can have a bigger view of the world around me.  Stay strong, my friend, God will not forsake His children!

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