CIRCUMSTANCES

If you visited this site at, or before seven AM, and, if you happened to look at the Weather Channel box to the right, you saw the temperature here in Two Rivers, WI. Yes, it is one degree Fahrenheit. However, because the wind is gusting at twenty miles per hour, the box says it feels like minus 19 degrees Fahrenheit.

Hard to believe that just last week, it reached the upper forties.

This is the time of the year I do not like. I hate the cold weather, and when we get it like this, it just seems to stick around for weeks. However, having put this world into perspective through Christ, I find that I do not dislike this weather nearly as much as I used to.

You see, the weather is just a circumstance that I cannot control. It is here, I can’t change it, so I must deal with it. Suck it up, they say. I say, don’t suck it up too deeply, or your lungs will FREEZE!!! Better to be a shallow breather in elements such as this.

Even harder to believe is that grown men will play a football game today, just twenty-five miles north of my house. That’s right, at 3:15 PM today, the Green Bay Packers will welcome the Jacksonville Jaguars to town, with temperatures that are sure to dip below zero before the game is over.

Having played a little football myself, I can tell you that even in seventy degree F temps, football hurts. I can’t imagine what it feels like at zero. And for the men from Jacksonville, a city located in Florida, I have nothing but pity.

A game like this, on a day like today, should be played between teams that are accustomed to these elements. Personally, I’d like to see the New England Patriots, or the Pittsburgh Steelers waltz into town, so the game would be fair.

Again, ALL circumstances beyond my control. Today, it is simple to give control up to God. If you need to be reminded of how absolutely out of control we are, take a look at the box on the right, and notice what the weather FEELS like.

I pray for all people living in these areas, that they would find the warmth of God as I have.