Tag Archives: spiritual journey

Finding Support in Snowstorms: A Journey Home

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Well, my friends, it has been a winter wonderland recently out here at #Itsnotta Farm! The big fluffy flakes are still coming down as I type tonight, and it is supposed to keep coming for a few more hours… here’s hoping I can get out to work tomorrow! Which is where my muse meets us for this week’s post: travelling home from work last week! Usually, by the time I am heading home from work it is beginning to get dark. My commute is about 12 minutes on a good day… along two fairly decent two lane “highways”. One day last week was whiteout conditions. Now, when the weatherman says whiteout out here, it means the snow drifts across the farmer’s fields… and with the predicted 100 kilometer winds, the snow piled up deep and fast!

Photo by Apti Newim on Pexels.com

So here was my scenario… it’s dark, the wind is whipping across the fields, driving snow over and across the roads. It’s not bad driving along until: BAM you hit the snow drift at 60 clicks. Cars were spun out and dotting the road here and there. I moved slow and tried to see ahead for the dangers… almost home. Just before the turn off onto our street… flashing yellow lights. Big 18 wheeler in the ditch and the flatbed tow truck in my lane. Okay angels, get me around and back into my own lane safely…phew. Signal well in advance to turn… here I go….and OOOF.

I literally could not see in front of my face… the snow was blowing so hard between our two farmers fields I could not see… and the snow drift it created was about 3 feet high. Do I gun it and hope I make it only to get stuck deep in the middle of the drift? Do I call it here? Do I turn around and head back 10 minutes and try my luck at the other end of the road? Quick prayers and call for help. “Hi honey… I am abandoning the car here at the end of the road and walking home… no I can’t see, yes, I am fine, yes …I suppose it is stuck….I have boots…” I struggle to put my boots on and hit the flashers. I am now a country girl… I can do this. I’m so close to home, I made it this far… I can’t feel my face…

Just then, I see the head lights of a large truck… my farmer neighbour pulls up along the other side of the now 30 foot long drift. I smile my dumb-city-girl-moved-to-the country-and-can’t-drive-in-the-snow smile. “You okay? I’m going to go get my plow… be 15 minutes” as he drives his big truck through and back around. (At least now the wind had died down enough to see each other). Another set of headlights on the other end of the drift… Hubby has arrived! I drudge through the pile of snow, bare feet shoved in winter boots, purse, keys, lunch bag and shoes gathered around me as the wind whipped at my face like a scene from some crazy adventure story… I hopped in the van and drove home while my superhero hubby waited for the good Samaritan farmer to come back with the plow to get the car through. I am sure they both had a laugh at my expense and an exchange of words about country weather. I thank them both for “rescuing me”.

Not my real neighbour… but you get the idea!

As I thought about this, I wonder how many times have people needed to be rescued in life? Many of us. In fact, I am guessing all of us at some point need rescuing. We go through life’s trials slowly… trying to see ahead and making cautious choices to move around the flashing yellow lights. We put the high beams on and press forward. We almost make it home… and then we turn the corner and get hit with the drift that is just too big to plow through without help.

Are you hearing it, my friend? Have you been there struggling to put on your boots when you can’t feel your face and plan to “walk home” leaving the troubles behind? Luckily, God provides a Way. He sends community to help. It’s not just coincidence that neighbours just happen to be out driving in snowstorms. Phone calls are readily available. In 2025, we have no excuses not to check in on one another. Many of us are blinded by our surroundings. We can’t feel our faces, but we are determined to make it on our own. Until we get stuck. I was in no real danger. Yet, many of us are hiding our troubles, cruising along on our own until: BAM we hit the drift full force. Joyfully, God is right there waiting for us… we simply need to ask… and He’ll plow the way and clear the storm. He doesn’t promise the snow will stop, or that the wind won’t blow…. but He’ll be there to dig us out of the ditch when we veer off the road.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

So, beloveds, if you don’t need rescuing this week… be the neighbour. Bring the plow around and clear the way for someone else to maneuver through the snowdrifts of life. Be there at the other end of the call when someone threatens to walk home alone like a crazy person. Flash the yellow lights and be a guide for what may be ahead. Protect and pray. I’ll be thinking of you as we dig our way out of this current dumping … and hoping I make it to work in the morning! Blessings, my friends!

Book Review: The Hiding Place

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As we start off another year, it’s about time for another book review! This time it is a classic… although I admit to never reading it before now! The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom is now in print for its 35th anniversary! Can you believe it?! Obviously a time tested biography, Ten Boom’s heroic story will live on for many more years. I was graciously donated tickets to go and see the “film version” of a play depicting the story before I actually delved in to the book, and despite what I warn my children, the movie version actually helped me “put a face” to the beloved characters. There are a lot of names. There’s a dash of Dutch references and historical ideas that need to get all sorted out in your reading of the book, so the film helped me, personally, with the history and politics (which I’m not so good at!)

Let’s start from the beginning. In case you have not heard about Ms. Ten Boom, she is a real life concentration camp survivor who, along with her father, sister and other family members, hid Jewish victims of war in a secret room in her Holland home. They were a vital part of World War II’s secret underground. The book reads like an adventure novel: twisting and turning, flashing back to Corrie’s childhood love interest and family matters growing up, then inching its way into her harrowing tale of death and abuse in Germany’s concentration camps for “untold criminal offenses”. All the mean while maintaining the family’s unwavering faith in God and His love for all humanity.

I recently changed the living room curtains in our old farmhouse from a modern print, to lace. The family hates them. ”They look like old lady’s nightgowns” they say. Perfectly suited to a century home where old ladies lived, I think. 

Doesn’t she look like she would love lace curtains?!

I picture Ms. Corrie Ten Boom when I think of that old lady. Not that she was old when her story begins to unfold. The timeline in the book tells me Corrie becomes the first licensed woman watchmaker in 1924. It’s about this time that the book describes her sister, Betsie, taking over the “housekeeping” and her love of tulips and lace and all things pretty and feminine. Perhaps Betsie would have appreciated my light and airy curtains that make everything “a little brighter”.

And so the tale of Corrie and her “sickly” sister shines with the faith of their father. Practiced and wise watchmaker, Caspar, who invests in his children through the scriptures with readings and worship each day around the family table. The love for humanity oozes out of the memoir. Still, Corrie is honest about her doubts, her fears, and her lack of fashion sense. A girl after my own heart, Corrie. A girl after my own heart.

I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but the resounding theme of God’s miraculous way shining through in a period of human history that was so dark, is definitely the focus of the story. Like the Hiding Place in the upper room itself, God’s unwavering omnipresence is always there… even when we don’t think it is. The book begins with Corrie’s war journey, but ends with her evangelistic journey, as she begins to share her faith with others. She tells her story and shares her faith as a testament to her family’s legacy. The ending is gut wrenching, and I couldn’t help but think how evil our world has become. Yet, God is bigger still.

I shouldn’t have, but I marveled at how much Corrie “got away with”: a hidden Bible, a smuggled sweater, how many hidden actual people in a secret room?! Was she allowed to “lie” in order to hide a bigger truth? It, again, reminds me God is bigger. And He’s in charge. What’s a world war to the Creator of the universe? Mere humans with an evil agenda? God’s got that, too. I like how one reviewer put it: ”…The Hiding Place, repackaged for a new generation of readers, continues to declare that God’s love will overcome, heal, and restore.” And He does it in secret ways that make us wonder “How did that happen?”

And so the biography, some thirty five plus years old now, is one still so relevant for today’s society. A society still filled with hate and destruction, but managed by a still faithful and all-knowing God. I’m encouraged by stories like these. I am reminded of the past in tangible things like the watchmaker’s watch, or my lace curtains. I am strengthened and encouraged for the future, because I know, like Corrie, her sister, Betsie, and those she saved, that God’s love is evident, even if it’s hidden in a hiding place.

I hope you, too, can be encouraged through stories like this classic. And go with peace this week, my beloved, knowing God still sees us in the Hiding Place.