Dad always used to say, ”If a blizzard comes in December, January, or February, shovel it up quickly. Otherwise you could be slipping and sliding on it until March. But if a blizzard comes in March, don’t worry about it. It’ll melt away on its own.”

Yesterday we had a blizzard in my neighborhood. It was two days after the start of spring, and thinking of Dad’s words, I didn’t even get my shovel out of the shed. But I probably should have looked at my iPhone’s weather app.

Last night we went down to 15 degrees, and this morning our 5″ of snow was crunchy, slippery, and very difficult to walk on with hard ice underneath. As Birgitta struggled up the front walk carrying Emerald today, I felt bad that I hadn’t shoveled.

Dad’s rule has proven true over the years, maybe 95% of the time. But this blizzard was an exception. And it reminded me of times in my history when I’ve had a crispy cold heart toward certain situations or, in some cases, toward certain people.

It’s always best to “shovel away” accumulated “ice” by dealing with it sooner rather than later. If our frigid attitude is toward a set of circumstances, we should promptly make an analysis: if there’s something we can do to warm things up, we should; if not, we ought to hand it over to God so he can do it.

If it’s a relationship that’s become icy, we ought to look seriously for the reason(s) and act quickly to sort it out, particularly if it’s inside of a marriage. Relationship problems never “melt away on their own.”

And if we find ourselves cooling toward the Lord, we ought to get out the proverbial space heaters. Letting ourselves drift into a spiritual deep freeze can lead to a frosty relationship with the one who has offered to keep us warm from the inside out. And if shoveling away the relationship snow seem too daunting a task, we can remind ourselves it’ll never be any easier than it is “today.”

As for my crusty front sidewalk, the weather app tells me it’ll hit 52 degrees tomorrow and that a spring rain will wash away all the ice and snow. So in terms of blizzards, I guess Dad was right again.

“Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.” (Psalm 37:8)