Watching the temperature ranges for the week, I determined that I should remove the ice before someone broke a hip or an arm or any number of bones I could imagine - and believe me, I could think up bones that people probably didn’t have.
We were going to have company on that particular Sunday and so I went after the ice with a vengeance, even though the chiseling through the stubborn sheet of ice was probably doing more damage to my back and my elbow than would ever do to someone who fell on my driveway.
But again, even as I saw three-inch patches of shiny ice, I dreamed up a scenario in which my visitors got overconfident from a mostly-shoveled driveway and would unlikely step on those tiny portions of ice.
This took several sessions because it was exhausting chipping away at all of the potential danger spots. In one such incident, I didn’t wear a coat or a hat and suffered a mild case of frostbite.
Temperatures broke later that week and Mother Nature did a better job of de-icing my driveway than I ever could.
My imaginings and worries took a toll on my body and mind. It turns out we were not cut out to control nature and the future - even in the name of “acting responsibly.”
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Trust works to open portals to heaven while worry closes them and creates a cloudy mirror from which anxious images bounce back at us.
Do not be afraid of them; the Lord your God himself will fight for you…He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’
Deuteronomy 3:22, Mark 4:39-40