Ice Skating

The kids thought about going ice skating at Patterson Arena, but then they decided it would be a lot more fun to make their own rink, and they’ve been skating off and on ever since. With Kathy’s wedding just a month away, I haven’t been as eager to go out there and break my neck playing hockey the way I usually am, but I’ve been contenting myself by watching them fly around. Skating is so fun!

Our lane is like an ice rink too. Sunday morning our car pretty much skated to church, and I marveled that our pastor hadn’t canceled services, but we arrived safely and were very blessed to have gone. We couldn’t NOT go, since Alan plays electric guitar, Stephen the piano, Joel drums, and I sing with this week’s worship team. So, we held our breath, whispered a prayer, and gently eased our way out the lane. All the side streets looked like sheets of ice, but the interstate was salted, and so once we hit the freeway, we felt safer.

Salt is a good thing. Not only does it make our food taste better, it lowers the melting temperature of ice. I’m very glad the highway commission salts our roads in the winter here in Michigan! Salt can also corrode metal, so salt on the road is wonderful, but salt on our cars is not.

Jesus told us to be like salt. My job is to stay on the roads and off the cars. Do I lower the freezing temperature of that which is treacherous in the world, helping melt away problems and making it safer for people to get where they need to go, or am I flying up off the road, getting under people’s skin and causing corrosion?

Lord, help me to stay on the road, and help me to keep from getting under people’s skin!  It’s a trick, isn’t it?

“Let your speech be always with grrace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man”

(Colossians 4:6).