For the first time ever we canceled our church service, all because of an ice storm. I really hate giving in to the weather, but I just couldn’t get my car off our street.

The day before, I drove to Toronto and back in the freezing rain, and though the trip took longer than normal, we made it … and my hands were not even so cramped that Lily had to pry them off the steering wheel.

But Sunday morning was a different game all together. Saturday I drove over 600 kilometres; Sunday morning I only made it down the driveway – about 25 yards.

I even took two stabs at getting out. With the first one, I couldn’t even get to the end of the driveway. But when I got out of the car to survey the situation, I realized I had a flat tire.

Suddenly a memory from the night before made sense to me. We were pretty tired when we got home from Toronto late Saturday night, but I remembered that as soon as I turned off the car in the garage I heard a hissing sound.

I wondered for a moment what that was from and when I opened the car door I could still hear it. But then Lily said something that got my attention away from the faint warning sound and I didn’t think to check into it further. We just emptied the car and headed for bed.

That hissing sound I heard when I got home was my car tire going flat. After 617 kilometres (383 miles), my tire went flat as soon as our trip was done. It didn’t happen along the way in the freezing rain, in the middle of nowhere. It happened as soon as we were safe in our garage at home. That’s pretty amazing … thanks, God.

So feeling really thankful, I pulled the car back into the garage and changed the tire. My second stab at getting out I thought I would make it for sure. But as easy as it was to get down the driveway, when I got onto the snowy, ice pellet covered ice rink underneath, all I did was spin my tires.

I had to pull the car back into the garage. And we started the process of informing our congregation that there wouldn’t be a service because the pastor couldn’t travel the 8 kilometres to the church.

It was brutal, especially when I had been through a worse ice storm 15 years earlier and still made it to the church, no problem. We had a service then, mind you there were only about 17 of us who showed up.

That time the whole city was hit. They had to call in the military, hydro trucks and personnel from other cities. People were without power for days, huge trees came down, and power lines had to be reconstructed. The city looked like a war zone and I still made it to church!

This time, I just felt like a wimp who got beat by the weather.

Here’s the thing: As independent and capable as we think we are, as sure as we are that nothing will keep us from doing what we want or need to do, we can’t do it all. Sometimes it’s something very small that stands in our way. Take it as God’s message that He wants you to depend on Him and not yourself. Know your limitations and humble yourself before God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What little thing has kept you from doing something you thought nothing could stop you from doing? Leave your comment below.