Plight in the Snow

 

     A snowy day like today reminds of one year ago, I believe it was on December 31, 2022, when we were dumped on with 2 feet of snow.  Even though I had to drive about 15 mph on the snow-coverd highway, I felt lucky just to get home safely and not get stuck.  My driveway was completely covered with snow when I got home at about midnight, and I had to ram my truck into the driveway.  It was stuck good, but at least it was off of the road and I could deal with it the next day.  
     I was looking forward to the task of shoveling the driveway, being in the crisp clean snow, the quietness of the snow covered clear morning, and working up a sweat.  Our rural neighborhood roads are not plowed by the city, instead, men in the neighborhood with tractors band together, and plow the roads for the neighborhood.  It is really nice.  
     They were still working on the roads and hadn't gotten to the road in front of my home yet.  As I was working on my driveway, I had yet to get to the area where I lodged my truck--which is a little to the side of my driveway.   While I was shoveling the deep snow, a black car slid off of the road and got buried in the two feet of snow on the dirt side road right in front of my fence.  I would have loved to have helped, but my 2-wheel rear drive (which gets stuck all the time in much less snow) was also firmly stuck, and it is questionable whether it could have helped anyway.  I kept working on my driveway, and the guy--who looked like he was on his way somewhere in a hurry, probably to work--was making futile efforts to get out.  
     After a couple minutes, I was about to go over and try and help him out by digging the snow around him out.  Before I could offer to help, a second guy from our neighborhood saw the stranded first man.  Well the second man pulled up his gray Ford F-150 pickup.  He hooked up a tow strap to the back of the smaller black car.  He then began pulling the little car out, and as he did he began drifting off to the side of the road as well.  Interestingly, the black car was pulled out of the side road and onto the road, and now the gray truck was in the deep snow of the side road.  After expressing his gratitude, the first man in the black car was able to drive off.  The second man, confident at first, tried to get himself out, however he was as stuck as the black car had been just a few seconds before.  

     Just then a third man drove up with his wife in a very large, very new, shiny white Ford pickup.  It was one of those Ford trucks that the front looks almost as big as a semi truck, must have been a Super Duty or F-450 or something.  Much the same, the third man hooked his bigger truck up to the smaller truck of the second man.  This was kind of getting entertaining now as I stood watching this in my driveway.  Almost exactly as before, the third man's truck began drifting to the side of the road as he pulled on the second man's truck.  This time the gray truck (second man) made it up to the road, and the bigger vehicle (third man) had drifted off to the side road.  
     Just like the second man, the third man, started out confident, but soon found that he too could not get out.  This was really turning into a circus I thought.  How was the very large truck going to get out?  The second man in the gray truck stayed to see if he could help in some way.  He certainly could not pull out the much larger truck.  He then saw about 3/4 of a mile down the road in front of my house, one of the tractors shoveling the snow in the neighborhood.  It was a well used, older; large, and very tall loader.  The second man in the gray truck drove down the road and spoke to the fourth man in the loader.  

     The fourth man apparently agreed to come and help because the tractor started heading our way.  The second man in the gray truck arrived back quickly, while the fourth man in the loader lumbered slowly down the road towards us.  A few minutes later, the loader finally arrived.  He hooked up his tow chain to the third man's large (but relatively smaller) white truck.  The loader with its huge tires and huge weight pulled out the other truck and the loader did not drift at all into the side road, and the white truck was again on the road.  Now finally all the vehicles were out of side road and free to go on their way.  
     The fourth man in canvas overalls up in the tall loader, tipped his hat, and went on his way and started clearing the snow on the roads near my home.  The second man and the third man shook hands, and went on their separate ways.  I stood there thinking about what I had just seen.  I was glad I was able to watch it all.  It was entertaining, funny, good-natured, and enlightening.  It reminded me of the good will that people have towards one another, especially when someone is in a predicament due to the snow.  It taught me that there is always a bigger something out there to help pull us out of the messes we get ourselves and our vehicles into.  As I have thought about this dilemma in the snow over the past year, it teaches me that there is One who is always there to help us.  All people, no matter how big and powerful they are, get into some sort of mess.  And there is One, who is greater than us all, who can help pull any of us out, no matter how big the plight or how deep the hole we find ourselves in.