Backwards

The snow is tapering to flurries this morning, and the plows are already coming through. A tiny storm cell left us with a fresh coating of white last night.

But it came in backwards.

Here in the Twin Cities -- and, I suspect, in much of the Midwest -- weather moves from west to east 90% of the time. (I totally made up that statistic, by the way, but since I'm a meteorologist at heart, I'm OK with doing that.) You watch the radar and see what's happening in the Dakotas (or just Twitter with Heather of the EO who now lives west of here), and you'll have a pretty good idea what's coming our way.

Not so with the storm yesterday. Winds converged and Superman flew around the planet at light speed (I made that up too) and suddenly, we had a storm coming at us from the east. It moved from Wisconsin into Minnesota and left us with a black-and-white world. (And the faint odor of cheese.)

Backwards. I had to smile.

In my world, God is the instigator of backwards. Only He does things that are extra-ordinary, unusual, sometimes impossible.

Last night, Corey and I celebrated Valentine's family style. We ate leftovers at the kitchen table and laughed at the kids as they engaged in their nightly, post-dinner game of hide-and-seek (or hide-and-shriek, in Teyla's case). It wasn't romantic or sentimental. It was real. We did manage to sneak away Saturday night for a dinner alone, and we basked in the chance to explore a few local restaurants (one for dinner, one for dessert) and to talk without interruption. But even that wasn't over-the-top mushy and sentimental. It was just us being together.

When we were first married, Corey and I did Valentine's Day the way Hallmark says you should. We got dressed up and at at expensive beach-side restaurants. We traded big red cards and flashy gifts.

But back then, our hearts were separate. We went through with the show -- maybe because we didn't want to acknowledge reality. But there was no warmth behind the dazzle, no companionship to carry us through the other 364 days.

It's funny to me that our 17th Valentine together -- when many marriages have turned cold and stale, and Valentine's Day is just a bitter reminder of what was -- that it's now we are reveling in the new and growing more and more infatuated with each other and marveling at God's ability to raise the dead.

Backwards.

Only God does that.