Where a parking lot met the woods

2021 started out pretty silent for me.  God usually booms pretty loud in my soul.  Not this season, this season I have longed to hear his big booming voice.  Don't get me wrong, I still hear him, he just kinda whispers these days - not that good kind of make you feel special whisper.  That, you're not really sure kinda whisper.  The one where you strain to hear and wonder if the words are really for you or were they meant for someone else.  I prayed for God to boom and he did for few short hours on a cold night where a parking lot met the woods.

Snow is my favorite thing in all the world.  Travis is my favorite human, but snow is my favorite thing.  I know a weird thing for a Texas girl to cling to, but it is what it is.  I can't change it.  

For me snow is spiritual, as much as I always have something to say, I find it a challenge to put it all into words - it comes out in fragments or simple words that all mean something deep in my soul - white, cleansing, soft, new, fresh, clinging, blanketed, cold, accumulation, unique, collection, loud.  

If you have been around snow, I know what you thinking --- how is snow loud?  I wish you could be in my mind for just a few minutes while it snows so you could understand.  Well, no never mind, I really don't want anybody in there.  Let me try to explain.  My life is chaotic, there is always something happening, someone talking, someone needing, someone crying, someone asking, someone telling,  something beeping, blaring, playing... do you get where I am going with this?  

When it snows and I walk in it all alone, the quietness of the sound of the snow falling around me is so loud is consumes me.  It's the closest thing to the sound of God's voice I ever experienced on this planet.  It's what it feels like when God booms in my soul.  Snow booms in my ears when I stop and listen to it fall around me.  

So this past weekend, weather reports were very clear we were going to get snow just about hour north of us.  My amazing husband made plans to take me to spend the evening/night watching it snow.  He thought he was just being spontaneously romantic, something that's not necessarily been his go to over years.  It really became something more.  Yes, it was wildly spontaneously romantic and so out of character for him,  but it was also a spiritual moment that I had longed for in this quiet lonely season with God.  

Travis is not much for snow, so he found a warm spot in the room near a big window that looked out over the woods and he settled in to watch it snow.  I, on the other hand, could not just sit and watch, I was there to experience snow.  I bundled up and spent the next several hours hearing from God.  You see it happened just like I thought it would,  just like my soul knew it would, when I stepped out into the quiet snowy evening.  The loudness of the snow overwhelmed me.  God began to download into my soul all that I had been longing for.  He boomed!!! Just like the snow boomed in my ears.  I built a small snowman.  He was a little rough around the edges, his smile was a bit tattered, he was perfect... - if you don't like snow you will find this silly.  Yet for me in that moment, he was my altar, my reminder of the place God spoke.  The place God assured me I wasn't alone.  The space between the spiritual and the physical became thin - there where a parking lot met the woods became Holy for me.