Of Holidays past.....

Something I am so very thankful for is that my mind has a huge compartment filled, to the brim, of wonderful holiday memories. Only by God's grace and goodness I was blessed with a wonderful family who have always loved and served our Lord and Savior. Likewise, Brian has the same heritage and we just enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with his family.

While I could go on and on about all of my wonderful memories of holidays past, I have come to realize that many do not have that experience in their lives and even as I sit here I know of way too many who are going through some very tough times.

So....I just wanted to look back at a Thanksgiving and a Christmas that forever has stuck in my mind as ones where -even through some difficult circumstances - I knew God was 'walking it' with me.

I was a junior in college and my Texas buddy and I decided to surprise my parents, for Thanksgiving, in IA. Originally we were going to visit a good friend of ours in Maine, but decided that the weather may not be the best heading up North (this fact will be quite funny in a moment). So we leave Cedarville College, in Ohio, singing 4Him songs at the top of our lungs. We make it through Indiana and Illinois without too much trouble. Then one of the biggest Iowa snow storms ever hit on our way to my home.

Let me just say that it is NOT a good idea to travel in a major blizzard with someone from TX. She had never experienced such a thing and her exclamations just added to the stress. Between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo there is just about 30 miles of nothing. My friend had counted 25 cars in the ditch before I had asked her to please count in her head. The radio had to be off too as it really took everything in me to keep the car on the road.

We made it to Waterloo and I just couldn't make it the next 20 miles home so we pulled off to a hotel. The first one was booked up with stranded people. The second one had one room left. I still remember my TX friend opening her car door and falling into a hill of snow. When we got into our room we found out, watching the news, that they had just closed the interstate we were on. That just NEVER happens in Iowa so it just goes to show what kind of blizzard we had.

The next morning I snuck downstairs knowing it would take an hour just to find the car in the ice and snow. I gave great entertainment to the hotel clerk as I pecked away at the ice cube of a car. Getting in it finally and needing both feet to push open the passenger door. Whew! But I knew this all would freak out my TX friend and I was determined to make it home for Thanksgiving dinner.

We did make it that day. Surprised my parents as ALL their friends were telling them: "Aren't you glad Janet didn't come home in this." I handed my Dad the rental car keys and didn't drive until we had to make it back to college.

How thankful I was to first of all have a Heavenly Father who guided my car and kept us from spending the night in a snow drift. Secondly, how thankful I am that I have an earthly father who loved taking car rides with me every day from the time I got my permit at 14 until I received my driver's license at 16. Who would take me on gravel roads and he would get out of the car, take out his hankerchief and put it on the road, and then have me drive over it again and again to make sure I knew where my tires were. He said some day you might not be able to even see the yellow and white lines and really need to know where your tires are on the road. He also always had me drive on snow and ice. And for fun we'd even take the station wagon to an empty parking lot and do the best donuts. With a wagon, you could easily spin around 5 times. I have two fathers who prepared me and watched over me that scary night and how thankful I am for that.

Well.....this is WAY too long. The other 'holiday story' is harder to write. Brian and his Dad are the ones getting up in the middle of the night for Black Friday shopping. So....I'll shut this down for now and hopefully share another holiday tomorrow.