A Day Plucked Out of Time
I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of the wind whistling through the eaves. My consciousness barely caught hold of the sound, knowing it meant something significant, and then I snuggled down in the blankets and drifted back to sleep. A few hours later the phone rang in the darkness. I nudged my husband and whispered, “The phone.” As he slid out of bed to answer the call I smiled to myself. A call this early in the morning could only mean one thing, snow day!
I listened to his short conversation with the high school principal.
“No school today?”
“Okay, well you have a good day.”
“Good-bye.”
He made calls to the teachers below him on the calling tree and then came back to bed. We talked about the wind in the night, wondered about how much snow had fallen and what roads were closed. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I knew our daughter Sarah would be awake finishing up homework and getting ready for school. I slipped out of bed, into my robe and headed down the stairs. When I pushed open her door I couldn’t help grinning. “Guess what!” I said, “No school today.” Her face lit up as she said, “Yesssss!”
I flopped onto her bed and invited her to come lie down with me. We quietly visited about the day ahead of us and then about this and that. Our conversation was unhurried the way everything is on a snow day. As each child received the news about school the reaction was the same, the joyful face, the shout of excitement and then the conversations about the weather and the day ahead.
I never experienced snow days until I came to this winter wonderland. But I am always amazed at the holiday feeling these days possess. They are different from a regular day off or even a holiday itself. It’s as if a day was plucked out of time and handed to you. There are no commitments, no rushing, or worries. There is simply family, safe and warm away from the storm. Sometimes the days are filled with projects that have been waiting. Other times they are full of pajamas, books, games and concoctions in the kitchen.
Of all the things that winter brings this is one of my favorites. But there are other things that I love. Winter is a time for slowing down. Cars slow down or they slide off the road and people slow down too. It is a time for reflection and the drawing of the people you love closer. Winter is a time of comfort.
Celebrating Comfort
As the temperatures drop and the flakes start to fall I turn my thoughts to comfort and protection for my family. Extra blankets and flannel sheets find their way onto beds. Snow pants, coats, boots, gloves, hats, and scarves are pulled out of storage. Rugs are placed on bare wooden floors. Chairs are pulled up close to the wood-burning stove and fires burn with long licking flames behind its window. Warm soups with crusty bread, hot chocolate with toast, and comfort casseroles show up on the menu more often. We don sweaters, turtlenecks and hoodies. Everything is pointed to warmth, comfort and protection from the storm.
It is no wonder to me that during this time of storms and darkness we stop to celebrate the birth of the One who is a “refuge from the storm.”[i] The one who hath “comforted his people,”[ii] and “will comfort all her waste places; and (who) will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.”[iii] He is the Son of the “God of all comfort.”[iv]
The Saviors life was filled with the work of comforting. He offered words of life to those who had hearts to hear. He fed the hungry. He gave sight to the blind and healed the diseased and distressed. I love his words to the woman with the issue of blood, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.”[v] He taught of comfort for those who mourn and during his final hours with his disciples his concern was to offer a promise of comfort to them.
As a Mother Comforteth
Part of nurturing is to provide comfort both physically and emotionally. As women, given our nature to nurture, we have inherent desires to comfort those close to us. Even the Savior used mothers as a type of what He will do for us. “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted.”[vi]
However, we are not infallible in our nurturing and comforting. We get distracted and discouraged. We get impatient with the seemingly insignificant troubles of our children be they pinched fingers or the latest friendship drama. But, when we follow our mother’s heart to comfort we follow the Savior. We find that the woman we truly are is a woman who knows that “to nurture and feed (her children) physically is as much an honor as to nurture and feed them spiritually. She is “not weary in well doing” and delights to serve her family, because she knows that out of small things proceedeth that which is great.”[vii] Such a mother knows that providing comfort is one of those small things that tie her children’s hearts to her own.
As winter closes in on us, as the days get shorter and the snow piles higher, let’s turn our thoughts and our hearts to the comforts we receive from the Savior. Let us rejoice in His birth and His life. And, may we slow down and remember that to comfort is to be like Him.
