Noah Mocker

Noah Mocker

Packing my suitcase for a week of training in Charleston and I checked the weather. It was only going to be a few degrees warmer, so I decided easy maintenance sweaters and dress pants would be the easiest to pack. Two pair of shoes, one loafer style and the other a dress boot with a heel for the one long pair of dress pants I packed. Then, just because I love them, my new slippers for walking around the hotel at night. I also packed warm PJ’s, two pair, just in case I spilled coffee….okay, two pairs because I love PJ’s and planned to spend as much time in them as possible. I looked at the weather again and decided a warm coat, heavy scarf and gloves, and I completely ignored the little snowflake showing for Wednesday…why? Well, it’s Charleston, SC that I was heading to. They never get snow and if they do, it will be a simple dusting with possibly a delay in the time I go to work. Which translates to more PJ time.

A week later and I am home after only 3 hours of training with my new manager and exhaustion from spending 2 and a half days stuck in a hotel room. Wednesday morning I woke to a text message before 6 AM, telling me to stay put and not to try to come to work until I heard back from my manger. I got up, turned on the news and looked outside to gray skies with no precipitation. I smiled it off, smirked at the overly excited weatherman that was talking worst case scenarios and thought…yeah right, 5 inches in Charleston. So I took an early shower and when I finished getting ready, I had another message before 7 am, telling me the office was closed for the day. What? It’s not even raining yet? No rain is reported until 9 and snow is not supposed to come until 12. Confused and finally understanding how my more Northern friends feel when it snows at home, I went down for breakfast.

After breakfast, I went back up and saw messages from my dad about the freezing rain hitting his home, near Savannah and realized that same storm was coming toward us. Still, I thought, no work today and possibly a delay tomorrow. Around 10, the airport closed and around 12, the snow started on top of three hours of freezing rain that covered everything. I went to the lobby to find that all of the restaurant in the area had closed and they were planning a lunch buffet, but the chef was trying to get something together, as they normally did not serve lunch. People from all over the Continent were booking rooms, as their flights home had been canceled. At 1:00 we all gathered at the dining hall and patiently, well some of us, waited as the overwhelmed staff finalized the make shift lunch. By 1:20 I was sitting with two ladies from Michigan that had just come off a 10 days cruise, and a woman from Canada that had been visiting family. The conversations all around were fascinating as person after person tried to explain the shear complexity of snow in Charleston. You see, Charleston Closed.

The staff at the hotel was stranded with us, with only one or two new staff faces over the next two and half days. Finally on Friday, I felt safe to leave and the first 45 minutes, I drove very slowly up highway 26 until ice and snow disappeared from view. Once out of harms-way, I began to think about how I was a part of history. A storm of historic measures that looks like a Hurricane shooting up the Eastern coast, bringing record breaking cold, hurricane force winds, and wave surges in Northern states. The East coast was at a stand-still as flights were canceled, hotels overwhelmed, and unprepared people looked out windows as beaches filled with snow and ice.

I had warning, I thought, as I remembered the little snowflake on my weather app. I knew this was coming, I should have brought snow boots, warm pants, an ice scrappers, and food for my hotel room. But, I didn’t….instead I brushed it off as complete silliness and found myself standing in the same place as some of the world’s most famous non-believers. How must it have felt to know you had a chance to climb aboard the Ark as the first rain drops fell and to look at that closed door, kicking yourself for not believing the warning?

I laughed at myself in the car when I realized that I too was a Noah mocker. I choose to believe what I know and what I know is that, Charleston, SC does not have snow storms that produce 5 inches of snow. But it does and this once in a lifetime adventure has made me even more aware of who is in control.

Nothing this world shows us, prepares us for the pending coming of The Lord Jesus and so many people ignore the indicators. It’s just fiction in a book written by fanatics. Or is it? What if you’re wrong? What if, you should be packing snow boots, but instead pack dress boots because those make more sense.  

Father, thank you for surprise reminders that we are never truly prepared for what can happen. That things that are normal can change at any moment and we should always be prepared. Help us gird our loins and prepare for the day of your return, while being a light to the lost and turning more mockers to the Truth. Amen.