If you live in the upper Midwest part of the country or used to, you know it always gets cold in the winter and you always get snow.

Sometimes, the snow arrives before Thanksgiving, sometimes after Christmas, but I can assure you, there will be snow.

This year, Northern Indiana has already had its second snowstorm of the season. Over the past four or five years, it’s been after Christmas before we have received any considerable snow.

The first snowstorm was two weeks before Thanksgiving, which was quite early for us, and we received six inches of snow. The snow was only on the ground for a few days, as temperatures went back up into the 50s.

The second storm came in just two days after Thanksgiving and gave us around twelve inches of snow.

Some of you may think, “Wow! How do you make it around?” Snow is just another thing in the Northern Midwest you know you will have to deal with in the winter. The area has plenty of snow removal equipment, and they have removed snow from roads so much over the years that within just a few hours after the storm, life is back to normal again, and traffic is moving (somewhat slower, but moving).

The biggest snowstorm I can remember in my lifetime was the blizzard of 1978. I was a senior in high school then, and it was called the snowstorm of the century. Our area had over 40 inches of snow in about 12 hours, with over 60 mph winds and snowdrifts over 10 feet high! It crippled our area for a week. The road crews even had to bring in the big payloaders and cranes to open up some of the back roads. When they were done, I remember driving through our road and seeing snow piled up on the side of the road over 15 feet tall. If I had not lived through it, it would be hard to believe that it wasn’t an over-exaggerated story.

Life is like this too. You have little storms and possibly a storm of the century. Everyone will go through storms and be inconvenienced by them at some point.

Whether it’s a little or big storm, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is how we deal with them.

Life’s storms can be crippling for a little while, and sometimes you have to get out the big equipment and shovel your way through them.

The difference between how a Christian handles a storm and how the world handles one is significant. A Christian knows Christ is right there next to them, helping, guiding, teaching all the way through it. The world struggles through, blaming everybody, feeling sorry for themselves, and making everyone else around them miserable too. Some people even take their own lives because they feel so overwhelmed that they can’t deal with it anymore.

If you have been following my blog, you know that I have just been through a storm of the century. Although I didn’t handle it well at first, I finally did come back to my senses and gave God control.

Being a Christian is not a golden ticket or a get-out-of-jail-free card. We will experience the same types of storms, events, and tragedies as anyone else in the world does.

What matters is how we manage and handle them once we are in the storm. This is why being a believer in Christ has a huge advantage. As a Christian, you have built your foundation on solid rock (in Christ).

It is an unremovable foundation, and nothing can tear you away from it. God will always be right next to you through whatever circumstance you’re in; you just need to take your hands off the controls and let God take over (easy to say, really hard to do). Until you do that, you will continue making a mess of things, making it take longer to clean up afterwards, and possibly hurting friends and family during the storm.

Human nature is complicated. We won’t really make a change if we are not forced to. The storms in life force us to change directions, how we live, and what we do. We will, however, be changed.

Letting Christ take over, we will still change, but we will change for the better, not worse. We will see God with a clearer view. Our trust in God will become stronger as our faith starts to become unmovable. We become stronger, wiser, more confident, and more deeply rooted.

This is what storms are for. They grow us in ways we would not have grown otherwise. Yes, they are painful, and no one wants to go through them, but they will happen as surely as the morning will come.

Are you going through a storm? Don’t forget to pray and talk to God. Ask Him for help and guidance. God is a loving and just God. If you’re willing to give up your control and let God lead you, when you arrive at the other side, you will have changed and become a stronger person, a stronger believer in your faith, and God will shower you with many blessings.

May you always find peace in God.