The Day a Desert Dweller Needed Snow Chains

“Are you going to put on the chains?” I asked my husband Kevin as he pulled off the main road to drive the last mile to our cabin in northern Arizona.

“I think we should be fine with four-wheel drive.”

Ponderosa pines, spruce, and cedar lined the unplowed road, their boughs bent with twelve inches of fresh powder. Kevin wrestled the steering wheel of our truck, struggling to keep the tires in a set of old grooves on the road. As a desert dweller for over three decades, I had forgotten about winter weather in the high country.

“Come on, come on,” I whispered in the final ascent, before the back wheels slid into the ditch. Kevin tried several maneuvers before he acknowledged the obvious. We were stuck.

After shoveling out the wheels, Kevin put on the chains, an expense I had declared was not a necessity when we first purchased the cabin at 7000’ elevation. With a long list of now-we-own-a-cabin purchases, I felt chains were not a high priority.

“Chains only seem expensive, until you need them,” Kevin had countered.

I thought back on our conversation as Kevin climbed back into the truck. Chains in place, the tires gripped, and we slowly inched forward.

What else seems unnecessary until I need them?

I immediately thought of exercising my faith in prayer and Bible study, practices that sometimes seemed more of an obligation, rather than a needed discipline. With a crazy schedule, I had recently let the disciplines slide, but knew from past experiences that prayer and Bible reading only seem expensive, regarding time and attention, until I need them. Then, they become my very lifelines, giving me the ability to move forward.

Snow cascaded down as the truck brushed against an evergreen branch on the last turn to the cabin.

“You were right about the chains,” I said after Kevin parked the truck in the white driveway.

“Can you say that again a little louder?” he said, opening the door.

I joined his laughter as I grabbed a bag of groceries. I also determined to pay more attention to my faith disciplines, to put them into practice before I needed them.