O ONE QUESTIONS my mother’s direct prayer line to God. People from all over call her on a regular basis to ask for assistance with divine intervention. And, her results are pretty good. Her “talent” seems to work on just about everything except her own problem children and her lottery tickets.

So, it came as no surprise when, during a visit to South Texas one year, she announced that it just didn’t “seem like Christmas without snow.” She got to work right away to remedy the situation. But, try as she might, God just wasn’t listening… or, he was too busy with other things like death, disease and famine.

Now, most people who live here in our mild climate do so for a special reason. They just don’t like snow. It is okay to visit snow if you enjoy skiing, but after a couple of days of freezing your toes off, you can always come home and get warm again. Golfers just love San Antonio’s year-round climate, as do most people who have had to put up with antifreeze, snow shovels, boots and tire chains most of their lives. You know who they are; they’re the ones who can say “… and I had to walk ten miles to school in a blizzard, up hill both ways,” with a straight face.

Well, one morning just before the Christmas when my parents were visiting, San Antonio was hit with an unprecedented one-inch dusting of snow. The city virtually came to a standstill. Schools were closed and city services were cancelled all because of Mother’s snowstorm.

It didn’t matter. Mother was absolved of any doubts about her interventions. When she and Daddy flew back to Philadelphia the following week, the climate had returned to its mild and gentle self… and all of the golfers were happy again.

But, two weeks later, God must have picked up his messages because the sky opened up and dumped 18 inches of that white stuff all over San Antonio—a record storm. The Alamo didn’t know what hit it!

Everyone who owned a camera was out snapping photos of the snow. Kids all over town tried their hand at building snowmen and zapping their friends with snowballs. Local department stores had a rash of calls from people who had ruined their credit cards clearing windshields, and some silly snow-struck people even stuffed their feet in plastic bags just to walk in the frosty deluge.

Mother read the news report back in Philadelphia and just beamed. It was a little late, but it didn’t matter. Her Christmas prayer had been answered.

Since then, we have all warned her to be very careful about what she prays for. With power like hers, there is just no telling when she will have hell freezing over.

Barbara Davis
CHRISTUS Transplant Institute
San Antonio, Texas