An Adventure and an Advent Miracle

I don’t know how many of you readers have snow where you are. But if you’re from the Carolinas like I am, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Over the past few days, we’ve gotten a huge snowstorm—the most snow I’ve seen in a long time! This snow brought a couple of things our way yesterday. And I… well, I really wanted to tell you all about it.

To explain, I think I’ll let you read a page or two of my first journal. They put it pretty well. I wrote them yesterday, right after those things happened. (I picked a font that looked sort of similar to my non-cursive handwriting). The first one I wrote, I think, around 3 or 4 o’clock. All I know is that it was before 5:00, but in the later afternoon, when it was just starting to get a little dark.

   “ … it started to SNOW last night! I didn’t go out at the time, though most everybody else did. The snowflakes were HUGE. I got up around 10 today, and it was still snowing. It stopped about noon. This time, I did go out to take out Roxie. It was SO DEEP. The first snowfall at the new house, and it’s beautiful.

   “…Aaaand now we get to the frustrating part. All that pretty snow ended up giving us a power-out. And it’s worse than you think, because we might not get power back for days! I didn’t think this house COULD lose power—we made it through a hurricane a couple months ago, with barely a flicker. Making supper will be… interesting.

   “But even still, we’ll make the best of things. We’re going to do some Christmas reading in a little bit, and play in the snow. Daddy said something a minute ago that made me think better of this crazy situation: think of it as an adventure. We may be more like Bilbo than Gandalf when it comes to adventures, but still, it’s ‘the adventure that Aslan has sent to us’, to combine two great stories. We’ll do all right.”

And we did. We read a few of The Father Christmas Letters (by J. R. R. Tolkien, which he wrote for his children over the years). Then we went outside for some fun in the snow. It was kind of difficult—we got coats and stuff on downstairs in the mudroom, and it was getting dark. And we had no lights to turn on. Daddy was right: we are definitely like Bilbo about adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things. And dark too, in this case.

Eventually, we made our way outside. And at first, we didn’t really have much fun. We kept having to switch the leash with different people, each of whom had to stay out of the action while they kept her. One time, she got out after we’d brought her back in (though William caught her before she got too far). And Abi just didn’t have a good time. All this as it kept getting darker and colder.

But then… well, this next entry (written at 6:25) will explain.

   “You’re not going to believe this, but the power is back on!!

   “Daddy, Abi, and I were outside when it happened. We were starting to build a snow fort (mostly to cheer Abi up—glove trouble). And it was dark.

   “Suddenly, all the lights came back on—including all the Christmas lights! At first, we weren’t sure what had happened: I for one thought someone had turned on a flashlight. But we turned around, and there it was!

   “After a moment of amazed exclamations (most prominently ‘WHAT?!’), Daddy yelled out “Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!!”. Pretty good line, really.

   “I’m still kind of amazed. I don’t know what happened—though it gave our neighbours, the Yorks, their power back, too—and I don’t know if it’ll stay this way for long. But for us, it was a Christmas—er, Advent—miracle.”

I’m not making any of this up. That was exactly how it happened, just yesterday! Right down to “Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls!” I wrote it directly after coming inside. I couldn’t believe the power was back on! And so far, it hasn’t turned back off, and the snow and freezing rain has stopped falling.

I don’t know if my parents do, but I still don’t know how our power got back on so quickly. With it being somewhat close to Christmas, and with all the other places that might have their power off, we expected it to be days before they got someone out here to fix it. We expected to be in darkness for a long time.

And yet, here it was, just about two hours or so after it went out, and it was back on. It truly is an Advent miracle, for us. And very fitting for this time of year: the time of waiting for Christmas, waiting for Jesus—the Light of the World—to come. Of course, our waiting was surprisingly short. But God knew exactly when it needed to happen: He’s been taking care of us this whole time. And what a plot twist He brought to this adventure!

Let me leave you with the final sentence of my entry yesterday…

   “Daddy said it best, I think, as we looked up at our newly-shining house: The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

What’s the biggest snowstorm you remember?

Have you or anyone you know ever experienced an Advent or Christmas miracle?