Four Footsteps

It was so cold & more windy than it was cold yesterday that even I ran indoors. Yes, "I'm not a hamster" intrepid Aaron, did time on the treadmill at the gym.

My gym's a nice place to be, although I think they keep it to warm. (Why is it that gyms where you'll be sweating are too warm & hospitals where you lay around are always way too cold?) Anyhow, it's a balmy 72 degrees in the middle of midwinter Nebraska inside there with all the shiny equipment & sweaty people. I finish my run. Head to the locker room. Dry off. Sweaty person as I was. Put on all my layers. Feel too hot walking to the door. And in the four footsteps it took me to walk through the revolving door into the subarctic blast I lost 75 degrees. It was negative 3 outside.

It is hard to describe a four footstep 75 degree plunge. Bone-chilling is too weak. Breathtaking falls short. Maybe heart-arresting. Thought-halting. Don't forget to add, or is that subtract, a windchill of more than 20 below!

I hardly remember my walk to the car. My thoughts were at full halt. Maybe my synapses were temporarily frozen. I just don't see how Canadians do it. Maybe that's why they say, "eh," so much. They just can't think of something else to say. Frozen synapses. Thoughts halt.

A 75 degree drop in four footsteps can do that.

When is the last time you were shocked like those four footsteps? Inconceivable announcement? Doctor's diagnosis? Employment termination? Death pronouncement? Relationship implosion?

God spoke into the halt, through the cold, to me.

"Aaron, if you were to see your sinfulness as I see it... this is how you would feel. I love you. I am Jealous. I am Holy God."

Four humbling footsteps.