When I woke up this morning and saw the headline about the National Weather Service predicting an event of “historic” significance, I felt a shiver of fear. My husband and I have lived through some historic weather events, and the one where we had no electricity for three days during an ice storm doesn’t exactly rank as one of my fondest memories.
Today, as I send my column to the newspaper, it is merely raining outside. My husband is filling oil lamps, charging batteries and lugging the propane cooker onto the porch.
Yesterday I joined the throng at the grocery store and topped off our supplies. Milk, check. Apples, check. Peanut butter — two jars — check.
And now we wait. We listen to the weather reports every hour. We look out the window expectantly, ready to shout when the first snowflake appears. We fill the feeders so our feathered friends will not go hungry. We make sure the cookie jar is full.
Awaiting a storm reminds me of how little control we have over the future. Of course, it’s comforting to read that extra crews are standing at the ready in the event of power outages. And it’s good that schools are closed a day early, so the highways won’t be jammed as they were recently when the city was paralyzed by snow.
But we have to face the truth. No matter how often folks make predictions, no matter how much we plan and plot and shape our dreams, we can’t see into the future.
The future is mysterious, completely out of our grasp. No one can say for certain what’s going to happen five minutes from now, let alone two days. And no amount of prognosticating — whether by the weather service or Georgia’s resident groundhog, General Beauregard Lee — is going to change that fact.
Sure, there are many things people do have control over, especially in industrialized nations. We have climate-controlled houses, security lights that turn on and off automatically, and computers that alert us when updates are needed. Some cars let you know when they need an oil change, and phones chirp when the battery is low.
We are drowning in gadgets that supposedly make our lives easier, safer and more enjoyable. We get accustomed to having the facts at our disposal, whether it’s grocery-store prices or the latest details on the stock market.
But the possibility of a storm of “historic proportions” is a stark reminder of scenarios we simply can’t tame.
In truth, we are all one heartbeat away from eternity. My uncle was in his 20s, the father of two babies, when he suddenly died of a heart attack. That one moment radically changed the lives of his wife and children forever.
Every family has stories of young people lost, whether because of an unforeseen glitch on the highway that leads to a devastating accident or a strange change in a cell that morphs into cancer.
So what to do in the face of an unknown future? We can prepare as much as possible. Get check-ups for our health. Put money away for emergencies. Stock the pantry for storms.
But, in the end, it helps to recognize that every moment of our lives is in the hands of God. And whatever comes in the future — whether it’s starry skies or storms of heart-breaking proportions — he will get us through it.
