Seeing God in a Snowstorm

This winter has been nuts. We had a 14 inch snowfall in December and another 12 inch snowfall last weekend. It's funny. Each time one of these storms is mentioned on the news, there is an onrush to the local grocery store to stock up on milk and bread....I don't understand this at all. What can you make with milk and bread? soggy bread? anyways.....

Saturday afternoon while snow was still falling I got geared up and went outside to shovel my driveway. I can't decide why I went to shovel my driveway but I did. I hate shoveling. It's terrible. Something about repetitive motions that cause pain and soreness that just annoy me I guess. But for whatever reason, I went outside and shoveled away.

I shoveled a good part of the driveway and realizing that I was exhausted, I sat down on my front porch. And that's when it hit me.

Silence. 

More Silence.

A LONG SILENCE.

There was no noise. Just falling snow. I live in the suburbs. There are over 150,000 people who live within 8 miles of my house...but there was only silence. It was as if I was the only one in the world.

For about 10 minutes I felt as if it were just God and me. And so I started talking to Him. I don't remember what God and I talked about for those 10 minutes. I just know that I could have a conversation with him. for once my life wasn't too busy.  For once, I didn't have my tv, ipod, computer, work to distract me. I couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't do anything. the only thing I could do was sit in silence with God....it was beautiful.

My question for you is this... Why is it that we are so busy that it takes an act of God just to cause us to slow down enough to spend time with God? Why did it take a foot of snow to slow things down enough for me to truly sit in silence with God? Why are we so busy that a state of emergency in our state is the thing that allows us to profess the state of emergency in our hearts to God?

what do you think?

Jon