I am enjoying listening to people recount their ice storm stories. One person told me his family congregated at the home of the one relative who hadn’t lost electricity. The house filled with cousins and in-laws. The first six hours went well, but when those hours turned into two, three and four days….? Well, it will be a while before those people are once again talking to each other. However, all the stories weren’t like that. When I asked people what they did after 5:00 p.m. when it got dark, most people told me they got out old board games. Clue, Monopoly, Chinese Checkers and Scrabble were very popular. With no electronics to isolate them, people sat down around tables and talked. I could not help but see the smiles on faces as they talked about their experiences.
When I was a child I learned from Poor Richard, “Early to bed, early to rise makes one healthy, wealthy and wise.” Ben Franklin wrote that about the time he touched the key on his kite. Not only were those the days without Clue and Monopoly, they didn’t know how to harness electricity and Thomas Edison wasn’t yet born. Going to bed early made good sense. There wasn’t much else to do.
Lest you think I am going to spend the rest of my days talking about the ice storm I will cease with this devotional by making a very common analogy to our need for various kinds of power in all aspects of our lives. Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:20, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, . . .” Ah, a power more desirable than electricity.
Written by Roger Bothwell on December 18, 2008
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