MikePeercy.com

There is something about life here in the flat, windy, red-dirt expanse of southwest Oklahoma that is peacefully predictable.

We live where the storms that make this “Tornado Alley” usually begin to spin. We dwell where the streak of 100+ temperatures most summers are measured by weeks as much as days. Our home is where the wind from the south feels like a giant hair dryer is much more familiar than still air. And for about 2-3 days a year it’s a place brought to a skidding halt by winter weather.

We don’t have the skill or expertise of our friends up north to get or keep our roads clear enough to drive safely. For a day or two a year it’s hardly worth all of the tools that would make that better. We don’t get much time to practice driving in it so most folks either drive like there’s little hope of arriving safely or go on like there is nothing out of the ordinary to slow them down—and both are equally dangerous.

I could go on about the fact that we almost never get plain ol’ fluffy snow but rather have a layer of ice first so that things are extra treacherous, but that would probably only merit more scorn from our frostbitten northern friends. Suffice it to say that, generally speaking, it seems a more efficient use of time and energy to simply wait it out until the temperatures return to “normal” and all of this melts away (usually a matter of hours).

But something happens after the frantic scrambling for more bread and milk (and other groceries) than most families would consume in a solid week. When the storm finally hits and the ground is genuinely obscured by the snow, the irrationally hectic rhythms of life finally come to a stop.

It feels like the earth just grabs us by the face and gets right up in our grill and says, “Dude… just stop.”

You already canceled or rescheduled the events, closed the schoolhouse, and emptied the grocery store.

Just stop.

Be still for a moment with the people in your home. Work a puzzle. Lounge in your pajamas. Make an extra pot of coffee.

Just stop.

Stop worrying about all of the things that are not getting done. Stop trying to figure out all of the rearranging and rescheduling that will have to happen. Stop worrying about the things.

Just stop.

Why? Why would the very earth press us to cease from our constant busyness?

Is it possible that we have been so bent on getting things done and filling up our calendars that we have been ignoring a fundamental need we have to simply stop and breathe?

Is it possible that we have been, as a culture, neglecting a rhythm that has been baked into the very world in which we dwell?

I have deliberately repeated those two words together several times, “just stop.”

It’s not a new idea. You may have heard this idea in its ancient Hebrew expression… “sabbath.” In its simplest form, it means simply to stop. 

It was built into the world’s rhythm in the origination thereof when the Creator worked at its forming for six days and then stopped to rest—not because He was weary, but because it was important to every part of His creation to do so. It was important to the animals we employed to labor with us. It was important to the very soil we would tend. It was important to the forests and fields and lakes and rivers. It was important for our very souls.

And sometimes, I think, we get very real, undeniable reminders to just stop.

When the snow and ice comes and it’s irrational and unwise to keep running about for a day or two… and just stop.

When we have neglected our bodies’ need for rest and keep pressing until we find ourselves flat on our backs as our very being cries out, “just stop!”

I look at the frozen landscape with the sun gleaming across it and realize I have been given a gift—a deeply meaningful reminder to be still and know that someone far greater than I has gone to great lengths to get it through to me to…

Just stop.