After driving our pickup home on icy roads with snow blowing sideways and a semi bearing down on me, I had a much deeper appreciation for the phrase “white-knuckling it.” I was just grateful to make it to our driveway without sliding off the highway or adorning the hood of the semi.
My husband calls snow the Great Equalizer. It slows everyone, covers everyone. All of us are the same: travelers struggling to make it safely to our destinations, whether in semis or pickups.
As much as I love the beauty of the falling flakes, I’ll admit I groused about dashing through them from the parking lot to the grocery store that day. “My hair will frizz as soon as it dries,” I whined.
My world is so immediate. I took the pickup that morning without much thought of a snowy day. Didn’t take a muffler. No umbrella. No extra coat in the back seat.
This is Colorado; I knew better.
Remember when your mother said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today”? People credit Thomas Jefferson with those words, but I don’t believe it. It had to be someone from Colorado where the weather can drop 30 degrees in 10 minutes and you can use sun tan oil and snow boots on the same day. It had to be someone like me who put off taking her broken glasses into town on Saturday because she was going on Sunday so she’d do it then and save a trip.
Ha! Not here. Not when a winter blizzard can blow in hours before it’s predicted, clog your driveway with snow and coat the highways in sheet ice.
Guess who spent three days trying to read and work at the computer in a white-out?
Procrastination cost me a lot, but it also gave me something in return: blurred vision and a killer headache.
Some people put off going to the doctor. Others put off saving money, exercising, eating right or talking to God.
Snow isn’t the only equalizer, so it time. We don’t get tomorrow. We think we do, but by the time we get there, it’s today.
Whatever it is you need to do, from saving money to talking to God, do it today. It’s really the only time you have.
Showing posts with label tomorrow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tomorrow. Show all posts
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Friday, April 2, 2010
Good Friday. Good-bye.
We call it Good Friday. Is that because we get off work early to pack for a weekend away at the lake or the beach or the mountains if it’s warm enough?
More than 2000 years ago, a handful of Jewish leaders in Roman-occupied Jerusalem considered this a good day because it meant they were getting rid of a troublemaker. “Good riddance,” they might have quipped in Hebrew to the man who had turned their world upside down.
However, Good Friday was intended to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth on a Roman cross. He hung there, the Bible tells us, in our place. He took our mistakes and failures and sins upon himself and paid for them with his very blood. He died there. His friends retrieved his body, wrapped it in linen strips and laid it in a stone tomb.
That day the Passover holiday was upon them and they had to get Jesus out of the way. It was their tradition – not an uncaring ritual, but one that dictated immediate burial of the dead.
So they did.
And that should make it good.
I know that without his death I would die, but I still find it hard to call this day Good Friday. Crucifixion is anything but good. I’d rather call it Black Friday – a day when the Light of Life went out and Satan sang in triumph. But “Black Friday” is taken. It’s the day after Thanksgiving when American retailers raise their profits out of the red pit of loss – another misguided moniker.
Maybe it’s easier for modern man to consider this a good day because we know the rest of the story. But Jesus’ family and followers did not. He was gone. Dead. Buried. They were alone. They didn’t know he was the ultimate Passover Lamb sacrificed in their place. Nor did they know he would live again.
Tonight and tomorrow imagine what it would have been like to have everything you believed in destroyed. Imagine finding the answer to life only to have it ripped from your fingers and nailed to a cross. Imagine turning your back on the stone-cold tomb and walking away wondering if you would be next.
Imagine.
More than 2000 years ago, a handful of Jewish leaders in Roman-occupied Jerusalem considered this a good day because it meant they were getting rid of a troublemaker. “Good riddance,” they might have quipped in Hebrew to the man who had turned their world upside down.
However, Good Friday was intended to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth on a Roman cross. He hung there, the Bible tells us, in our place. He took our mistakes and failures and sins upon himself and paid for them with his very blood. He died there. His friends retrieved his body, wrapped it in linen strips and laid it in a stone tomb.
That day the Passover holiday was upon them and they had to get Jesus out of the way. It was their tradition – not an uncaring ritual, but one that dictated immediate burial of the dead.
So they did.
And that should make it good.
I know that without his death I would die, but I still find it hard to call this day Good Friday. Crucifixion is anything but good. I’d rather call it Black Friday – a day when the Light of Life went out and Satan sang in triumph. But “Black Friday” is taken. It’s the day after Thanksgiving when American retailers raise their profits out of the red pit of loss – another misguided moniker.
Maybe it’s easier for modern man to consider this a good day because we know the rest of the story. But Jesus’ family and followers did not. He was gone. Dead. Buried. They were alone. They didn’t know he was the ultimate Passover Lamb sacrificed in their place. Nor did they know he would live again.
Tonight and tomorrow imagine what it would have been like to have everything you believed in destroyed. Imagine finding the answer to life only to have it ripped from your fingers and nailed to a cross. Imagine turning your back on the stone-cold tomb and walking away wondering if you would be next.
Imagine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)