Snow Angels

So while I love a good Snow Day (or two), I don’t always love the repercussions that the snow often brings (like freezing cold temperatures and back-breaking shoveling).  But about a week ago, when we got our first snow and then with the snow that we got these past two days, I was reminded that even in the midst of life’s unexpected storms, there are always beautiful and wonderful things to be thankful for.

I’ll start with last Saturday.  We found out that our friend Sandy was moving from her home in Center Moriches to Eastport and as a family went to give her a hand with moving her things.

We weren’t the only ones there.  In addition to some of her family, we met up with other awesome people from our church who had committed their mornings to helping Sandy as well.

As we packed up boxes and worked together to do the heavy lifting, my heart was so happy seeing everyone work together.

Sandy’s been at Eastport Bible Church ever since we moved here over 14 years ago.  Her awesome kids came up through our Youth Group and she and her husband John were always such a blessing to us as well as to our church family.  We were absolutely heartbroken when John passed away from cancer last February.  So seeing some of our church family join together to help Sandy with her move was so heartwarming.

We finished up just as the snow started to get a little heavy.  I believe we ended up with a few inches that day and mostly just enjoyed the beauty that it brought.

Which brings us to today.  Yesterday, we got a whopping 14.5 inches of snow in Eastport.  Which is a pretty sizable amount for Long Island.  Bitter temperatures today kept most indoors, but when I looked out our window across the street to the church, this is what I saw.  And it might not be as remarkable if you didn’t know that this was our friend Mark who has always blessed our church with his skills as a snow plower.  He spent quite a bit of time today plowing out the entire church parking lot.  He worked together with a few other friends, namely Ted and Jonathan and they formed a bit of a team of snow angels as they blessed our church with their willingness to serve.

Jeremy helped them out and then came home to dig around our car.  He always strategically places it at the end of our long driveway so that we can at least get it out after the storm.

As he worked and I helped (after taking my pictures) we suddenly heard the wonderful and familiar sound of our friend Jonathan’s tractor.  He graciously drove over and started to plow out our neighbor Diane.

And when he finished there, he came and plowed a much larger space so that we could actually park our car at home again.  It was a huge blessing to us, since our driveway is very large and there was quite a bit of snow that had accumulated there.

And then there was this guy.  He had committed to going out today to help shovel so first (with the help of his mother’s nagging about the cold) put on quite a few layers.

He put on his snow boots and a few layers of pants and, well, these socks and was good to go.  He walked over to our other neighbors and spent some time there working to shovel out their car and all in all, I was thankful and proud of his willingness.

Moving isn’t always the most fun.  And a blizzard that dumps over a foot of snow can certainly bring its troubles.  But in the midst of these two things, I looked and I saw the good.  I saw people who were willing to help and serve and it reminded me that no matter how hard life can be, there are always those who are working to spread love and that is a beautiful and wonderful thing indeed.