My lament all through childhood was that it was unfair that my birthday was in January, and my brother’s birthday was in July.  He had birthday pool parties with ice cream cakes outside on the picnic table; my birthday parties were often canceled due to weather conditions.

The most memorable birthday I experienced involved one of those canceled birthday parties.  Snow was falling and drifting, and the temperature was dropping rapidly.  And since we weren’t having company to the house, Dad decided that he would deliver space heaters to a family in need.

They were a family we knew through school, with the oldest girl playing softball with me in the summers.  They were a family known at school to be poor  but I hadn’t been to their house yet.  Theirs was a big farm house they were renting, and the whole house was heated by a single wood burning stove in the living room.  The living room was nice and toasty, while the rest of the house was frigid.

We drove the 4 miles to their home in the mustard yellow truck, my dad, my brother, and I.  We delivered the heaters and visited for a while, and when we went out to the truck which had been left running, it was no longer running.  It fired back up and carried us a half mile down the road before the frozen gas line stopped our progress.  In the blowing snow.  In the cold wind.  On the ice covered road. 

My brother and I were young, maybe 8 and 10, and while Dad encouraged us that we could just follow the road back to our friends’ house and we’d be okay, we were too scared to go without him.  Even though Dad would have to walk gingerly on the ice with his crutches, going very slowly, we were willing to set out ahead of him as long as he went with us.  So, we bundled up, my brother and I walking together down the road with eyes watering and freezing from the wind.  I remember looking back to see Dad was still there coming behind us.  The other family recognized we were in trouble and met us with blankets and hot chocolate, and that wood burning stove warmed our feet as we pressed closely to it.

I think about this story often, as it has become a marker in my life for the way my parents taught me to take care of others.  It was also a very memorable birthday!  And I often think that my path is obscured by snow, and the wind is so very cold.  I can’t always see where I’m going, but there is something comforting about walking alongside someone else on the journey.  The greatest comfort is knowing that my Father is walking there with me, and just the knowledge His presence emboldens and strengthens me.