We were crawling along the highway at 20 miles an hour in what the media later described as the blizzard of the century. Fat snowflakes were settling and sticking on the windshield. It was night, the roads were slippery, and there were no lights illuminating the road. My family and I were driving north to ski. We had left New York City at 4:30 that afternoon, oblivious to the weather report of dangerous driving conditions.

Our destination was more than 250 miles away, and it was clearly going to be a very long drive. I was praying to see that we were in our rightful place, that if we were meant to be on that highway in those conditions, then our presence had to bless us and those around us. We were bearing witness to God’s gentle presence in that blizzard. I was praying to see that all the motorists on the road were moving in God’s universe, that none of us could leave it because God’s good creation is all that exists.

The Lesson-Sermon that morning in church had included a passage from Isaiah: “The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory” (60:19). I held to that statement, and repeated it out loud as I drove with total concentration on the road ahead.

To me, the statement meant that God was lighting our way, God was right there with us, and we did not need the daylight, moonlight, starlight, or street lights to show us how to go. We were moving in God’s universe, at God’s direction, bearing witness to God’s glory despite the blizzarding conditions.

I found myself being grateful for so many things—the bumps on the side that tell you when you are veering too far off the road, the little reflectors that indicate where the barriers are, the taillights of the cars in front of me, the tire tracks in the snow. The thought came, “What if the driver in front can’t see, and veers off the road?” A calm conviction followed: “God will show you what to do. You are not placing your faith in a fallible human driver ahead of you. God, divine Mind, is steering this car, and all the others out there.”

There was a sense of community among all of us drivers. Everyone drove slowly. No one honked or was impatient.

At one point I was blinded, and all I could see was the dark and a mass of snowflakes swirling in front of the windshield. I was terrified. But then I saw a faint outline of tire tracks in front of me and resumed driving, trusting and claiming that God was an everlasting light unto me and to my fellow motorists.

It was so clear to me in that instant of blindness that being mesmerized by the snowflakes would be fatal. I could not for one second indulge that desire. I had to look for those markers, for those indicators of the road and keep them always before my eyes.

I saw it as God holding my hand, steering our car, lighting our way. This was true because God’s creation, God’s activity, God’s intelligence, is all that there is.

We ended up pulling over after eight hours of driving, and finding a motel that took the six of us and our dog. The next morning, we made it to our destination in a few hours and enjoyed a glorious day of skiing in deep powder.

The hypnotic pull of dancing snowflakes has become a helpful analogy to me. I often ask myself: Am I focusing on error; am I staring at the evidence of the material senses; am I holding to the belief that I am separated from God? Or am I looking at the spiritual reality of God’s creation? Am I seeing what God sees in me, in everyone and everything that comes into my experience? In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts” (p. 261).

It may seem at times as though we are in a fog; that we can’t see our way clear to a decision about career, finances, or health. But this is looking at the snowflakes. This is not God’s reality. God’s reality is unchanged, radiant, full of light, and glorious to behold.