Old Man Winter Gave It To Texas

 

Why, Mr. Winter?  Don't you like Texas? Are you ashamed of yourself for what you did?

Texans knew winter was going to blast the state, but residents couldn't imagine the severity. Most of us in South Texas have never experienced a big-time freeze.

I lived one year in a parsonage in northern Oklahoma, and that winter was awful. I also lived in a drafty parsonage in a country town close to Wichita Falls, TX.  I'd forgotten what it is like to not have water. Those old parsonages were cold. They had no central heat, but the pipes never broke. We never had our house flood from broken pipes.

The pipes froze, and I don't know why they didn't burst. God's goodness to us, I suppose. We were children with adult responsibilities.

I remember looking out the kitchen window one morning in northern Texas to see a sweet, older deacon burying the pipe that drained the kitchen sink. He dug a trench and concealed the rusty thing about twelve inches below the surface.  The pipe still froze, but not as often as before.

The water in that Texas parsonage was undrinkable, so, hubby would take a 5 gallon jug to the neighbor's well, fill it with water, and bring it home.  Sometimes, when we had no water in our house at all, we showered at their house. Our water situation in those days was an ongoing thing, so we grew used to it and dealt with it.

But I'm a big city girl now, and I'd forgotten how I managed in those days.

Water and heat are big deals. If you are accustomed to them, it becomes a challenge to survive without them.

There are seven Scripture verses that remind us that water gives us life. Without it we die. Of course, Scripture refers to the spiritual condition of man, and the living water is Christ Himself.