Let It Snow...

Oh guess what? The local weatherman forecast the possibility of some snow flurries and I have been ecstatic all day long! I’m a huge snow lover but could never live up north because that is just entirely TOO MUCH snow for me but just the anticipation of the possibility of snow makes me smile and get all giddy! Every time I hear the forecast of snow my mind begins to fade back to a little over sixteen years ago....

Shane and I had been dating for almost a year. He had proven to me time and time again that he was a young man of his word. To a point it drove me to insanity but at the time, I didn’t know how to appreciate that wonderful characteristic. Too bad we don’t learn these things until we are older! The weatherman was forecasting snow in the Birmingham area and I, a snow lover, was beside myself. I was 17 years old and absolutely bouncing off the walls with excitement. Momma and Daddy were probably well up to their limit with me because just by the mere mention of snow I turn into a two year old. Constantly looking out the window, opening the door to peek outside, begging the sky for a few flakes to fall.

Shane and I lived about 15 minutes apart by car. He worked at a local grocery store just down the road from his neighborhood and this day, he had to work. He had called me before he left for work and his last words to me were "I’ll see you tonight when I get off!" "What?" I asked. He continued, "I have promised you all winter that IF it snowed I would be there with you so we could share OUR first snow together!" I turned all but twelve years old at this point and sheepishly laughed and said "Okay." As the day slowly ticked away I watched the skies looking ever so closely for the sign of a snowflake and then all of a sudden around dusk, BOOM, there it was! It was SNOWING!! I started squealing and jumping around like a complete kid. I was clapping my hands and running in place and mumbling words like I had never spoken the English language before. Before long the snow began to accumulate. Oh, it wasn’t much, maybe ½ inch or less but it was still accumulation.

Around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. I realized that I had not heard from Shane. He had not called to tell me that he was off work and safe at home. I had no more thought about calling his house when I heard a knock at the door. As I walked towards the door all I could see was eyes peering back at me because everything else was covered up. I opened the door and there stood Shane!! I said "What in the world are you doing here?" He grinned and said "I promised you I was going to share our first snow with you and here I am!" I looked around him to see how he had gotten there because he didn’t have a car at the time and there was not an extra vehicle in the driveway. "How on earth did you get here?" I fussed. "Ummmm....well....I walked part of the way, got a ride a little more of the way, and then finished up the rest by walking!" I slapped his arm, gave him a hug, then slapped him again! "It is way too cold for you to be walking to my house!" "But," he whispered "I love you forever!" After we picked my parents up off the floor from utter shock that he had walked to my house, my Dad called his parents, agreed to let him spend the night in our extra bedroom and when we woke up the next morning, we made a snowman together and shared OUR first snow as a couple.

As I have sat and looked out the window of my office building today just praying to see a few snowflakes this story has been on my mind. The unfailing promise of a teenage boy to love me forever has been just that...an unfailing promise! We have been through some rough times, we have done a lot of stupid things, said a lot of stupid things, made a lot of wrong choices but at the end of the day we have stuck it out. Our love has endured!

At these thoughts I naturally became curious. I opened up biblegateway.com and typed "love endures forever." Did you know that the Bible references "...his love endures forever" in 43 verses? Wow! His love endures forever! How great is that? Do you know how long forever is? Can you even begin to describe love that endures forever? It is sort of like describing the taste of water, isn’t it? God will never fail you nor will he ever let you down. How do I know this? Because HIS love endures FOREVER!!