The recent snow siege in South Carolina was much-welcomed at the Joseph household. Tyus was quick to make a distinction between the last time it snowed (ie: flurried) and this time. As soon as he woke up at the crack of dawn on Monday morning, he came barreling into our bedroom screaming, “Mom, Dad, this time it stucked. There is yots of snow in the yard!” And he was right! I honestly had never looked at the window to something more beautiful and timely.

G’Joe and I both came down with some awful plague at the Alive Conference (oh the irony of it!) and when we finally made it home from our adventures in DC, our family went into a sort of human hibernation of sorts for aprox a week. Definitely not the days of our best parenting, as we would take pathetic 2 hour shifts of “taking care of the boys” while the other slept. It was semi-sweet to take a little date to the doctor together. We just love to do everything together, so it is fitting we would share bronchitis and an entire counter full of prescriptions. I sort of felt like we had fast-forwarded to our geriatric years. Meanwhile the boys did a wonderful job of taking over the house, eating a steady diet of ‘nola bars and trying to pour their own apple juice, and leaving “wego’s” all over the toy-covered house.

All that to say, we finally started to get well when G’Joe hopped on a plane with Brandon for a blitzkrieg of Dallas, Texas for a dear friend’s wedding. Upon his safe arrival home before the imminent “blizzard,” I sort of had a mini-meltdown (all internal, of course, except for the steam of complaints that made it out of my mouth to my sweet husband). While the Lord had been so gracious to sustain us during conference and through sickness, I had grown weary of clinging to the promise that “He would held her when morning broke; that He would be in the midst of her, and she would not be moved” (Psalm 46). I made a conscious choice to not believe and rather complain and be short-sighted. That night I wrestled through my grumpy attitude and faithlessness, only to awake to snow-covered life.

It was such a sweet gift to me, a reminder that the Lord is true to His promises, even in the silliest things. G’Joe and the boys and I got to have a sweet Monday together to make up for the weekend we had not had due to sickness and travel and busyness. I love that God is like that, He listens to my complaining and grumbling and losing heart patiently, knowing full well the provision He has in store me so soon.

Thus, the Snow Siege was more than welcomed at the Joseph household. Tyus was hysterical and very brave, sliding down the play set slide into huge piles of snow that nearly buried him. He must have done it 20 times! Meanwhile Eli J, who was ambivalent, at best, to the snow, was just standing there, 1/4 amused, 1/4 confused, 1/4 bored, and 1/4 freezing. I think Eli liked the idea of the snow and coming in from playing in the snow, but not so much the snow itself! G and I really aren’t snow people, but guilt and fear that we might be robbing our children of joyful memories compelled us out for a snowball fight and snow man building attempt. We also attempted some ghetto-sledding via a cookie sheet turned sleigh down the negligible hill that is our driveway.

On Tuesday, while G and Eli chose, wisely, to stay snuggled up at home on the couch watching Sports Center, Ty and I (against better judgment) drove on icy roads through a hilly neighborhood to do some genuine sledding (on real sleds, who would’ve thought those would be better than a cookie sheet?) with the Creasman’s and Parham’s at the local golf course. The hill there was incredible, so incredible that I was definitely a little scared. Ty, however, loved every second of it, and laughed when he and I busted at the bottom of said huge hill. His favorite part was going down the hill with Uncle Ben and Jack.

We were so thankful for our short snow siege and the extra and much-needed day of rest as family. God is so good to us!