First Baptist Church of Herndon

It only took a blizzard!

Linda Soller | Feb 01, 2016

In the Drop-In class for January we are discussing Inside Out – Emotions. If you haven’t seen the movie, “Inside Out”, I encourage you to do so. We started out with “joy”, moved on to “anger”, added “sadness” to the mix, and on the 24^th of January were due to discuss “fear”. Last, but not least, will be “disgust”. My goal was to help people tap in to their emotions, and see what the Bible offers to help us when we struggle. The sadness class was pretty sad, but we all learned how important it is to work through our sadness, not avoid it.

I said we were due to discuss fear, but we didn’t because we couldn’t have church on the 24^th. Blame it on “the Blizzard of 2016” otherwise known as the storm, “Jonas”. Yep, nothing like a blizzard to help you run the gambit of your emotions. My own situation as example. I was supposed to go visit my sister on the Friday the 22^nd, the day Jonas was due to arrive. My flight was cancelled mid-day on the 21^st. What! There is no snow yet, how can they do this? My husband, also planning to be out of town, was able to fly out Friday morning. I had worked the holiday the previous Monday in order to take it off on that Friday, so I opted to go ahead and take Friday off to really prepare for the storm, joy! I went to the store to treat myself to some goodies. While trying to check out, I dropped a jar of pasta sauce. My pants, the inside and outside of my puffy coat, were splashed in red dripping sauce, anger! Once home and cleaned up I tackled cooking and cleaning in preparation for the blizzard. It was then it sunk in I would not get to take my trip and enjoy seeing my sister and her family, sadness. By late afternoon the snow started. It was clear within an hour this would be a big storm. The media warned of a large snow fall, white out conditions over the weekend, and a prolonged digging out to follow. I thought of how to manage everything with comfort, except the possibility of losing power, fear. I could not stay ahead of the snow shoveling on Saturday. By Sunday morning we had thirty inches, and the drifting for the entire neighborhood appeared to be in my front yard, disgust!

Yes, I had experienced all the emotions we had been, and would be, discussing in class. So what did I learn? I learned joy can be found in small things like feeling prepared. Anger is wasted energy you will need when you shovel other stuff later. Sadness was fine and made me appreciate my family. Fear made me take precautions to stay safe, and disgust increased my determination to overcome adversity. Yep, I had experienced my emotions inside and out, and it only took a blizzard!

Have a great week!  Stay warm and safe! :o)  Linda