Oh, yes.  Oh, yes.  It’s cold, friends.

We had a flat tire last night.  We were about 1/2 of a mile from home, on our way to a nice dinner at a nice restaurant–something we haven’t done in quite awhile.  There was a strange ticking sound, and I quickly pulled into a nearby parking lot.  Not too bad, right?  Sure, we were lucky to be near home, and there hadn’t been a dramatic blowout.  But the thermometer was reading 4 degrees Fahrenheit.  FOUR!  Poor Cory had to crawl on the snowy, icy ground to jack the car up, to coax a stubborn tire off, and to place a sorry little doughnut on to the car.  He was frozen, and as you can imagine, the kids were antsy–and hungry. I couldn’t do much except pray that frost bite wouldn’t set in.  It didn’t.

This was not how we imagined our evening.  However, as I sat in the car with the heater blasting, thumbing through an IKEA catalog while the kids chattered in the back, I was flooded with a deep sense of gratitude.  I have been blessed with a hard-working husband who doesn’t blink an eye at doing and being everything his family needs.  I *know* how to change a tire–in my head–but as I felt the car rocking and saw Cory using all of his might (and he has a lot of might!) to remove the stuck tire, I knew with complete certainty that if I didn’t have him, we would have been stranded at the side of the road in frigid temperatures.  I have been blessed with the means to have a warm car that takes us where we need to go.  (Cory’s wet, muddy clothes meant that we didn’t have the nice dinner in a nice restaurant, but we did pick up a quick bite at Moe’s.)  I have a  house with a cozy fireplace, and when we returned from our cold outing, we lit that baby and watched the hot flames dance.

I am grateful.  Life is hard sometimes, but the blessings are abundant.