Paths in the snow

Sometimes, I wish I was the type of person who could learn lessons from nice things, like a cup of coffee. You know, how some people look into a steaming cup of coffee and see lessons in the light creamer and dark coffee mixing together or in the sweet and bitter combining?

That would be nice, but apparently that's not how I learn things.

Instead, my lessons come in the form of shoveling snow when the temperature reads 1 degree Fahrenheit outside.

The kids had a 2 hour delay before school this morning because we've had quite a bit of snow the last few days. Nathan had already left, so I needed to clear a path for the kids to be able to walk out to the bus. I started on the steps, then all I had to do was follow the sidewalk. The first thing to throw off my progress was a decision when the sidewalk came to a T: right or left? Should the kids walk over to the driveway or up to the road? The driveway seemed like the obvious choice at first, partly due to the fact that I wouldn't have as much shoveling to do. The ice under the snow over there changed my mind, though. It would be nice to have a clear shot to the car when we needed it, but I could just see both kids falling flat if they went that way.

So, left. Okay, sounds like a good plan. The sidewalk that way leads straight up to the road, so it should be a straights shot.

The thing was, when I started going that direction I quickly lost track of the stone sidewalk. The snow was too deep for me to shovel down to the ground in the amount of time I had before I needed to get back inside to finish getting the kids ready for school. No big deal--I just needed to shovel a straight path up to the road for the kids to walk to the bus.

I was almost to the road when I looked behind me. Not only was I not on the stone sidewalk, I wasn't making a very straight path, either.

The path wasn't very straight, and it wasn't where I was planning for it to be. It would work, though; it was a path to take the kids from the front door out to the bus without them either getting their boots full of snow or having them fall on the ice.

Right now, I have no idea where my path is headed. I've had many times when I thought I knew where the sidewalk was, where I knew what would be the best path. Instead, though, the path God has me on seems to be winding its way around so much that I can't even see where it's headed.

My kids didn't question the path I cleared for them. They simply walked it.

While it doesn't come easily to me, I'm trying to simply walk the path God is clearing for me.